Sardis Lake and the coming battle

Sardis Lake is in Southeast Oklahoma, near Wilburton, Talihina and Hartshorne. The Kiamichi mountains are to the south, the Jackfork mountains to the west and the Winding Stair mountains to the north and east. The lake was completed in 1983 at a cost of 38 million dollars and in 1984 the state part of that debt was 18 million dollars. The lake has been the subject of litigation since it's construction and the state debt is now 68 million dollars.

Sardis covers 14,360 acres and has 117 miles of shoreline and is a top bass fishing lake and beautiful to behold.

For years North Texas has been trying to buy the excess runoff of water but for years the excess runs into the Red River to the benefit of no one.

Locals are vehement about their rights to Sardis and now central Oklahoma towns and cities are vying for the opportunity to pipe water 140 miles in a five foot pipe at a cost of more than 310 million dollars their way. That is just for starters.

What promises to be a legal battle for our times is beginniong to take place. The issues: Law and the River, Water Marketing, Water Banks, Water Storage Rights, the Sardis water treatment plant, Water Disribution,States Rights and Tribal Rights.

We have everything here, Beauty, law and lawyers, politics, major construction projects, Indians and money, lots of money. Texas money, Oklahoma money, tribal money.

The most productive reading I have seen comes from http://cals.arizona.edu/AZWATER/arroyo/101com. This is all about the Colorado River and the rights of the various southwestern states to the water and the concerns that California would end up with it all.

IN 1922, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the law of prior appropriation applied regardless of state lines. I think what this means is that if an entity owns water or water rights and doen't use them, then someone else can buy those rights and use that water.

Expect Texas to file a lawsuit soon and the Central Oklahoma bunch had better file something also. This is a lose, lose for Southeast Oklahoma legisltors because you can bet that the locals see that water, all of it, as theirs. If Texas gets the water, the Central Oklahoma bunch loses and Lake Hefner dries up. If the Central Oklahoma bunch wins you can bet that the Legislture, at some time in the future is going to be asked to foot major funding.

This issue, along with the Attorney Generals lawsuit against the poultry industry and the draught, ought to get Oklahoman's focused on our most precious asset. The waters of the state. Not only the existence of the water but the purity of it.