Water Supply Lakes - Oologah
Esprit de Corps:
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In the 1960's and 1970's, the Army Corps of Engineers completed
construction of a number of flood-control projects, among which the
Oologah Dam and Lake Oologah. As Tulsa's water demands were once
again rapidly increasing, TMUA obtained rights for water from lake
Oologah, and construction began on a pipeline from the lake to the
water treatment plant in 1976.
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| Oologah Lake
Facts |
| Completed: |
1974 by Corps of Engineers |
| Surface area: |
29,460 acres |
| Shoreline: |
180 miles |
| Storage: |
553,400 acre-feet |
| Mean Depth: |
18.7 feet |
| Watershed: |
4,339 sq. miles |
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Protecting the Water Quality
The Lake Oologah watershed, an area of over 4000 square miles
that extends into Kansas, was the scene of intense oil and gas
exploration and production starting in 1905, and production still
continues at some wells. Oil and gas were produced from the
Bartlesville Sand formation, which is between 400 and 750 ft below
the surface. On the Oklahoma side of the watershed alone, over
15,000 wells were drilled. Many of these were subsequently plugged,
but many were abandoned without proper plugging. In addition, there
are still many abandoned tanks and pumps, and some areas around the
lake contain oil-contaminated soil.
In 1999, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the
Oklahoma Corporation Commission began a pilot project to locate and
plug any remaining abandoned wells in the area around the lake. The
goal is to restore the well sites as close as possible to their
natural condition.
Approximately 200 wells were indentified in two
sections in Rogers County, which will be plugged during the initial
(pilot) project. The future cleanup zone includes wells in 40
additional sections along the entire eastern shore of Lake Oologah
in Rogers and Nowata counties. The larger cleanup program may
eventually plug more than a thousand wells near the lake.
The Corporation Commission coordinated preparations that
included an aerial survey of site conditions, use of satellite
imagery and global positioning system data to help locate the well
sites and infrared photographs to identify oil spills, on-site
examination of the wells to determine their physical condition,
record searches to determine well history and ownership and getting
site entry permission from land surface owners.
More
details about this project can be found on the Oklahoma Conservation
Commission website. The Oologah watershed does not have the
sort of intense animal feeding operations that are prominent in the
Eucha/Spavinaw watershed.
The Oologah Reservoir continues to be administered by the Army
Corps of Engineers.
