By John Dobberstein, Editor
With Broken Arrow continuing to grow water demand increasing, city officials will hire an engineering firm to investigate the Grand River watershed as a second water source.
The Broken Arrow Municipal Authority (BAMA) decided Tuesday to seek out a consultant to study the concept of drawing raw water from the watershed and sending it to the city through a 20-mile transmission line that extends to Mid-American Industrial Park in Pryor. The line is owned by the Oklahoma Ordnance Works Authority.
The transmission line went offline in 2014 when the current water plant was built, although the city has been maintaining its pump station to that line each year.
Assistant City Manager Kenneth Schwab hopes to have an engineering firm selected for BAMA consideration later this year or in early January.
Safeguarding supplies
The water supply discussions have been ongoing for the last couple of decade as planners work to meet Broken Arrow’s needs and safeguard the city with a backup source that is more robust.
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The city currently gets it drinking water from the Verdigris River after being treated at the Verdigris River Water Treatment Plant, which went online in April 2014. The city mothballed the OOWA line after realizing it could not afford to build the new plant and also keep bringing in water from the industrial park.
BAMA has authorized construction of a 24-inch diameter supplemental water supply line connected to a 60-inch Tulsa Metropolitan Utility Authority (TMUS) transmission line running from the A.B. Jewel Water Treatment Facility in Tulsa. BAMA also approved construction of a 30-inch line connected to a 48-inch diameter TMUA line.
Although the improvements have enhanced Broken Arrow’s system and provided the city with more flexibility, both of those connections are directly fed from the same treatment facility and water source – the Verdigris River watershed, which is the same source as Broken Arrow’s facility.
If a contamination or extreme severe drought event happened in the watershed, not only could it adversely impact the city of Broken Arrow’s ability to treat water at its Verdigris River Treatment Facility and provide it to customers, but it could also hurt Tulsa’s ability to treat water and provide it to Broken Arrow.
“These types of potential events could create a catastrophic situation for our community,” Schwab wrote in a memo to city officials.
Although the BAMA does have flexibility at the city’s plant due to the 267-million-gallon pre-sedimentation basins that serve as a reservoir, “a second water source makes the most sense and provides the best flexibility for the future,” he wrote.
Having enough water supply for a growing city has always been a concern. After the Broken Arrow Expressway opened in 1965, the original water treatment plant was built to handle 4 million gallons of water per day (GPD) when the city’s population was only about 8,000.
The plant’s capacity was more than doubled in 1976 to 10 million GPD. In 1982, the city negotiated a 31-year supply agreement with the OOWA to send treated water through the Mid-America Industrial Park transmission line.
At the time, the 36-inch pipeline wasn’t at capacity and if repairs were needed there was plenty of time to make them. But in part of the pipeline broke one year and the city had only 8 hours to get it fixed before the city would possibly lose its water supply.
Studies of the water supply situation pointed to having a new plant built, which came online in 2014.
If the city wanted raw water — which would be gravity fed at about 12 million GPD — a 15-million-gallon storage tank would be needed to store it for treatment. The raw water could be brought into the existing sedimentation basins, or a new one could be built.
Schwab said he’d prefer to build a third sedimentation basin to bring Grand River water into a separate basin and the Verdigris River could go into its own basin and the water could be blended.
This would also give Broken Arrow the flexibility to switch from one water source to another if there were ever an issue with one of the water sources.
What would happen?
BAMA trustee Scott Eudey said he was concerned that if the city of Tulsa was providing water to several cities and a problem arose, Tulsa could potentially withhold water from Broken Arrow because the city isn’t a customer, per se.
Schwab confirmed the agreement between Tulsa and Broken Arrow did indicate Tulsa could cut off the water supply to Broken Arrow if it wished but that’s the same with all the municipalities.
If there were a problem, he believed Tulsa would ask Broken Arrow first to be cut off because Broken Arrow had an alternate water source while other cities did not, so it’s best the city have a second source rather than just a supplement.
BAMA trustee Johnnie Parks says he was told during the 1970s that the Verdigris River was not considered a good water source and the city was told not to use it, which is why Broken Arrow started purchased treated water from OOWA. Verdigris’ water requires extensive treatment and Parks believes the Grand River water would require less treatment.
Eudey noted Broken Arrow has an important asset with the decommissioned pump station and transmission line that could take some of the burden off the current water plant. And a second water source would be excellent as Broken Arrow “would no longer need to be beholden to another city for water,” he noted.
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