Could Foss water board run Foss Park?

Members of the Foss Reservoir water board learned to their dismay Monday night that they could become responsible for what is now Foss State Park if the park is closed because of the state’s budget crisis.
“If the state park should close, that comes into the district,” water treatment plant supervisor Shawn Dewees said at Monday night’s meeting of the Foss Reservoir Master Conservancy District Board of Directors. “We leased that out to the state park system. The way I currently understand it, it would come back into the control of the district. You guys would have to decide what you want to do with it.”
Dewees spoke in response to a question from Vice-Chairman Larry Perkey, one of the board’s two members from Hobart.
A longtime member of the board, Perkey said after hearing Dewees’ comment, “I had an idea it would come back to us.”
The board normally has few visitors at its monthly meetings, and those that do show up are usually officials from one of its member cities or people with business before the board, primarily contractors.
“I can see a large crowd at this meeting if that happened,” said Chairman David Berrong, referring to the board having to take over the park.
Hobart’s other board member, Joe Tipton, did not feel his cohorts should worry.
“Todd Russ (state representative from Cordell) said at a legislative meeting in Hobart it ain’t going to happen,” said Tipton, referring to the park’s closing by the Oklahoma Tourism and Recreation Department.
Foss was on a list of 16 state parks released the weekend of March 11 that could be closed if funds aren’t found to keep them open. The state has a total of 33 parks.
The list of possible closures was compiled in response to a request from a legislative apportionment committee sent to most or all state agencies asking them what the effects would be on their departments if a 14½-percent budget cut was implemented.
Foss Reservoir and the land around it are owned by the Bureau of Reclamation. It was Dewees’ impression the land is leased to the Foss Reservoir Master Conservancy District, which treats and uses water from the lake.
The closing date for this year’s legislative session is May 27, so folks should know by then if the park is going to stay open under state control.
In other business at Monday’s meeting, the board reviewed financial data for the first three months of 2017 and accepted a recommendation from Dewees not to raise water rates to the member cities. At the beginning of the year the board had followed his recommendation not to raise rates then but to take another look at the budget in April and make adjustments then if needed.
Dewees said Treasurer Bruce Tharel, who was busy Monday night and could not attend because of the fast-approaching April 17 income tax deadline, had printed a copy of the general ledger for him.
“We’re breaking even or to the good,” he said. “My recommendation is we continue as we have been without a rate increase. If something goes wrong, we might have to review it again. We definitely need to discuss it at the end of this fiscal year (on June 30).”
Dr. Bill Jackson, one of Clinton’s three members on the board, asked about membranes for the plant clarifier. Dewees said the district has an account with $200,000 in it that could be used for that purpose if new ones are required.
“The membranes we have now have run since 2003,” he said. “It was all day every day during the drought under conditions we’d never dreamed about.”
Dewees also reminded that the district has applied for a $750,000 grant from the Bureau of Reclamation that would be used to help purchase a new clarifier if it’s received. The grant would have to be matched by $750,000 in FRMCD funds.
“I don’t have money in the budget for that, but we have it in reserve,” said Dewees. “As of now I can’t recommend that we raise rates.”
The new clarifier is expected to cost $3 million when it is put in, so there likely will be rate increases at some point in the future. In response to a question from Roger Snider, the third Clinton board member, Dewees said the new clarifier would not replace the present one but only augment it. He said it also would be smaller than the present one.
Clinton City Manager Mark Skiles, one of the guests at Monday’s meeting, asked how long it would take to rebuild the old one.
“In an emergency situation we could do something,” answered Dewees. “We’d come up with a way to produce water.”
He said the last time the clarifier was worked on, it was down about six weeks but that was at a time when all the member cities could supply their own needs for that length of time.
Skiles also wanted to know how old the Foss treatment plant is. Dewees thought it was put in in 1974, but Dr. Jackson thought it was ’75.