On Tuesday night, two Freese and Nichols consultants gave Chickasha City Council an update on the Water Treatment Plant Project.
Last year, Chickasha voters passed a 1.25% sales tax to help fund a new water treatment plant that is expected to cost around $74 million. The tax will also fund some capital projects such as police and fire.
Clay Herndon, project manager, said the water supply for the new water treatment plant will come from blending Lake Chickasha with the Fort Cobb supply. Freese and Nichols looked at several other water supply considerations such as groundwater supply, City of Oklahoma City water and direct and indirect reuse, Herndon said.
These were all compared across several factors including: reliability, regulatory requirements, environmental impacts, water supply independence and cost.
“Our recommendation is to continue to move forward with Fort Cobb reservoir blending water with Lake Chickasha. You already have water rights in both of those lakes. You already have infrastructure in place to get water out of those reservoirs and get it to the water treatment plant. Blending those two water sources can meet your needs now and far into the future,” Herndon said.
Herdon acknowledged that Lake Chickasha has some water quality challenges. He said it may need to be reevaluated for advanced treatment technology.
Jason Cocklin, water treatment engineer, said he and his team spent a lot of time with the operators at Chickasha’s current plant and examined the condition of the facilities.
Cocklin said most of the plant’s operational parts were built in the 1970. Because the lifespan of a water treatment plant is around 50 years, it makes sense that Chickasha is having these issues, he said.
“It’s no coincidence at all that here we are about 50 years later,” Cocklin said.“What we saw is the operators are taking good care of the asset that they have, but the asset that they have is aging.”
Cocklin said the decision to replace the water treatment plant is like the decision to replace a car that has traveled half a million miles, rather than repair it.
Cocklin and his team also examined the functional capacity of Chickasha’s current water treatment plant. He said it is about 4.2 million gallons of water per day.
“It’s rated for 6 [million gallons per day] but all we would be comfortable pushing through what you have right now is about 4.2 million [gallons of water per day].”
Cocklin highlighted several benefits of building a new water treatment plant including improving taste and odor, improving water quality, supply and flexibility, a 50-year service life, efficiency, future advanced treatment and safety.
The 1.25% Chickasha sales tax went into effect on Jan. 1, replacing most of the .75% CIP tax that expired on Dec. 31, 2023. The tax will pay the loan from the Oklahoma Water Resources Board to build the new water treatment plan. Funds leftover from the loan payment may be used on other projects such as police, fire, sewer system upgrades and street repairs, as previously reported.
