Clinton buys Foss water, doesn't use

Three years ago Clinton was in the depths of a four-year drought and was seeking every ounce of water it could find. Times of course have changed since then, and at Monday’s meeting of the Foss Reservoir Master Conservancy District board of directors it was brought out just how much.
Shawn Dewees, manager of the Foss Demineralization Plant, reported that in November the City of Clinton proper received no water from Foss, even though it continues to pay a mandatory fee for its share of water produced there. For the month that was $79,847. Dewees indicated that included a charge as the city’s share of upkeep on the dam. 
The regular fee of course was set more than 50 years ago when Foss Reservoir was built and each of the four member cities agreed to pay for a certain share of the water produced there. As the largest city, Clinton was entitled to the biggest share – almost 50 percent – but also had to pay the most money.
“If you don’t use it, you lose it,” said Steve McLaughlin, FRMCD board member from Cordell, at Monday’s meeting. “They’re paying money for nothing.”
Of course that’s not exactly true. Clinton does have the assurance that it can get water when needed. During the drought, it was water from Foss that kept the taps here open.
In years past it was not unusual for Clinton – and the other cities – to take not only their share of water produced at Foss but much more than that. For the past year or two, though, Clinton has not needed to buy “overage” water from Foss.
Dewees’ figures, in fact, showed that in November, Cordell was the only one of the four member cities to buy more than its allotted share. It was a small amount – less than 1.3 million gallons costing only about $3,700 – which of course cut into the district’s budgeted income.
The good news for everybody at Monday’s meeting, though, was that even though Dewees reported only eight one-hundredths of an inch of rainfall at the big lake during November, it remains basically full of water. He said its elevation at the start of the month was 1,641.33 feet above sea level and 1,641.29 feet at the end of the month. On Monday, as the meeting was taking place, it was 1,641.28 feet.
And that was despite no water being released during the month into the Washita River, which the lake was built on.
“1,642 feet is considered full,” said Dewees. “We’re doing real good. We still have inflow coming in (from upstream), and we didn’t release any.”
“The biggest user at Foss now is evaporation,” said Duane Smith, former executive director of the Oklahoma Water Resources Board who is now a consultant to the Foss board.
Clinton of course has its own water source, Clinton Lake, which has its own treatment plant and is back to near-capacity production after being completely down during the drought, not only because of a shortage of water but also because of a chemical accident at the plant.
In addition, the city is now receiving water from the Dixon well drilled west of town during the drought and from two wells drilled by the Town of Canute specifically for Clinton after city fathers here agreed at the height of the drought to buy water from Canute. The Canute wells came on line in October of 2015, and City Treasurer Debra Blanchard said the average monthly cost for that water is about $25,000.
Asked if Clinton’s failure to take its allotted share in November caused problems at the Foss treatment plant, Dewees replied, “We’re just producing what they’re taking. We have limited storage, so we have to shut down at times. We shut down almost every day for a while.”
In other business at Monday’s meeting, directors questioned a $198,000 payment to GE Osmonics. Dewees said it was for 5,500 membranes purchased from the company for use during the water treatment process and all have been installed.
He said Tuesday the plant uses 43,200 membranes at a time and all those being replaced are worn out. Of course they probably got extra heavy usage during the drought.
Directors also questioned a $44,260 payment to the Oklahoma Mutual Assurance Group. Dewees said it was for property and liability insurance at the plant and was up from $43,000 last year.
“It seems as cheap as we’re going to get it,” he said.
“Gotta do it,” said Dr. Bill Jackson, one of Clinton’s three board members. Larry Perkey of Hobart then made a motion to accept it which passed, and Roger Snider of Clinton made one to pay the bills which also passed.