Tougher federal guidelines for drinking water standards are taking a toll on some area water districts that lack the financial means to upgrade treatment facilities.

Officials say a number of rural water districts in eastern Oklahoma are looking toward municipal water providers as a possible resource to help serve rural customers. Others are weighing consolidation or merger options.

Joe Harrington, deputy executive director of Eastern Oklahoma Development District, said regionalization of drinking water supplies will be one of the most important issues as the state develops its comprehensive water plan.

“It’s simple economies of scale,” Harrington said. “Large water systems can spread the costs of upgrading a treatment plant to thousands of users without much impact. Smaller systems with only several hundred users — when you spread those costs around, it just costs too much.”

Water district operators are under the gun as provisions are phased in from the Safe Drinking Water Act, which was passed in 2004. Harrington said a lot of the smaller districts have older treatment facilities that won’t be able to meet the deadlines for water quality improvements.

During a 2004 field hearing of the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, Arvil Morgan of the Wagoner County Water District No. 5, said each new rule has a cost.

“Compounding of these costs make it more and more difficult for systems to maintain reasonable and affordable water rates,” Morgan told the panel. “We want to do what is necessary and reasonable to assure that our water is safe. However, we believe that regulations should be based on sound science, and the ratio of cost to benefits should be an important consideration in setting drinking water standards.”

Garner Garrison, president of the Sequoyah County Water Association and a board member of the Tenkiller Utility Authority, said stricter standards should include funding to help offset the cost of compliance.

“When we first started out, Mike Synar was our representative,” Garrison said. “He thought the government would supplement the regulations with some funding to help with the costs. But that hasn’t happened, and the customers are having to bear most of the costs.”

The customer’s burden of paying for those costs vary widely. Harrington, who relies on a rural water district in McIntosh County for his household water, said he pays about $90 per month for the 13,000 gallons he uses on average each month. Garrison said Sequoyah County customers would pay about $75 for 13,000 gallons under the present rate structure.

The difference in costs parallels the size of the two water districts. The Sequoyah County Water Association, Garrison said, has grown from 980 customers in 1971 to more than 5,600 today. Onapa Water District 2, which provides Harrington’s household water, has just more than 900 members.

Harrington said the trend toward regionalization of water districts has been developing for some time, but appears to be escalating. He said the city of Checotah recently received grant money that will be used to upgrade its water treatment facilities.

A number of rural water districts, including at least one in Muskogee County, are planning to contract with Checotah for future water supplies in an effort to ensure reliability and avoid the increased costs of regulatory compliance.

“That’s the kind of issue the state’s comprehensive water plan is going to have to deal with,” Harrington said.

Reach D.E. Smoot at 918-684-2903 or Click Here to Send Email