Clinton Lake back atop city water suppliers

A story in last Thursday’s Clinton Daily News revealed that in November Clinton paid almost $80,000 for water from Foss Reservoir that it didn’t use.
After the story came out, City Manager Mark Skiles said there’s a simple reason for that. Or maybe more than one simple reason.
“Our goal is to provide the highest quality product to citizens of this community,” said Skiles. “The highest quality water available to Clinton is in Clinton Lake. We have turned Foss off due to our ability to provide Clinton a better product.”
Skiles indicated it makes sense now for the city to use as much water from Clinton Lake as it can.
Past city leaders also realized that, and over the years they tried to do so. But when a huge drought enveloped western Oklahoma earlier this decade, it couldn’t be done. Not only because of the drought, but also because of a huge chlorine leak in August of 2011 that knocked the Clinton Lake water treatment plant completely out of service for approximately three years.
Then as the drought worsened, eventually lasting over four years, city fathers were happy to get water anywhere they could find it. And for the most part, that was Foss Reservoir.
At that point the wisdom of past city leaders, who had been instrumental in getting the big lake built around 1960 and signing contracts to pay for water from it whether they used it or not, seemed almost providential.
Looking back now, one particular Saturday in May of 2015 can be seen as the turning point for the drought. Since then the area has received generally ample rains although farmers would say it’s getting time to tilt the bucket again.
Meanwhile, with the help of engineers hired during the really thirsty days, latter-day city leaders embarked on a $29.5-million water expansion program trying to make sure the city never experienced such shortages again.
Water quality evidently has improved too with less Foss water. Skiles said this year when the water flowing into Clinton homes and businesses began “smelling like dirt,” as he put it, the source of the smell was determined to be water from Foss.
“We quit taking water from Foss and increased production from Clinton Lake,” he said.
That could be done since summer was over and the city’s big demand crunch was past, plus the treatment plant at the smaller lake had been repaired.
“The contract we’re currently under (to buy water from Foss whether it’s used or not) was signed in 1958,” said Skiles. “It’s the oldest I can find. We are subject to this agreement till 2051. It was revised in 2001.
“Since we have increased production at Clinton Lake, the water through our 24-inch line (from the lake) moves faster. There’s less time between production at Clinton Lake and consumption. This has helped resolve some of our chloramine residual issues.
“Also, we’re getting water from Canute which is being treated in the line.”
The last few years, as Clinton leaders and city employees tried to make sure their town never again had to face the problems they were coping with then, they took other actions.
The Dixon well west of town, hailed when it was brought on line just 27 months ago, apparently is not even needed now.
Skiles said last week the city hasn’t gotten any water from the Dixon well for over a year.
“Summers in 2016 and 2017 were relatively cool and wet,” he said. “The big water user in any community is residential sprinkler systems.”
And when water is falling from the sky, as it’s been doing the past 2½ years, it brightens the outlook for a lot of things.
“The reverse osmosis plant (being built west of town) probably will give the people of Clinton the best water they’ve ever had,” said Skiles. “It will be commingled with water from Lake Clinton and Canute and mixed in the 24-inch line.”
But, he cautioned, “The worm can turn fast.”
While the availability of water now looks a lot better for Clintonites, economically the news is mixed. Like Foss water, which Clintonites are obligated to pay for for the next 34 years, they’re also bound by contracts to pay for the Dixon well for approximately 30 years and the Canute water for 40 years.
“Dixon and Canute are take or pay,” said Skiles.
Clinton Lake water is a different story. It’s not only cleaner than some of the city’s other water, Skiles said it’s also cheaper, and not just because the city already owns it. “Clinton Lake water is cheaper because it’s gravity fed,” he said, costing very little to get it to town.
He also said the city wound up with a much better deal economically by not taking the first deal the “dream team” threw at it. That was a 40-year agreement that would have cost $2.4 million a year; in its place he said the city ended up with a 30-year deal costing $1.7 million per annum.
“We went from a face value of $96 million to $51 million,” said Skiles.
Looking ahead, he sees even better times – as long as the skies keep weeping. “When the R.O. plant comes on line, we can take water from multiple sources,” he said.
Speaking of the R.O. plant, Skiles said it’s moving right along too. “There are as many as seven subcontractors there at any one time,” he said. “It’s like drying in a house. There’s a lot of activity going on inside; you just can’t see it.”
There’s also news about Severn Trent, the company that former city manager Steve Hewitt brought in to manage the city’s water and wastewater plants and to head up the consortium of companies he called the “dream team” that it appears will solve – with the help of the Almighty – the city’s water supply problems.
Severn Trent’s branch that was managing the water and sewer plants here has been sold and the local operation is now part of a company called Inframark which operates only in the United States. Inframark’s local project manager, Jake Walton, said Severn Trent is still operating overseas under its old name.