Senate Committee Eyes Groundwater Well Metering

House Bill 3194 advances from Senate Energy and Telecommunications Committee, would require groundwater wells permitted by OWRB to be fitted with metering devices.

April 1, 2024

A bill that would require landowners and lessees to install metering devices to groundwater wells permitted by the Oklahoma Water Resources Board advanced from a Senate committee on March 28.

HB 3194, authored by Representative Carl Newton (R-Cherokee) and sponsored by Senator Brent Howard (R-Altus), advanced from the Senate Energy and Telecommunications Committee. The bill has already passed the House floor.

Data from the meters would be used for annual water usage reporting required by OWRB. The legislation would also allow OWRB to include a five-year allocation from which permit holders could draw from as part of their equal proportionate share of a groundwater basin’s maximum annual yield, rather than being allotted yearly shares, Howard told committee members. “Help us to make sure that we have water as a resource for this state many years into the future.”

The bill passed unanimously but not with debate from committee members. Senator Shane Jett (R-Shawnee) said that the cost of the metering equipment—as expensive as $3,000 for high-volume irrigation pumps—would place undue burden on farmers. “We only look at fiscal impact of what it costs the taxpayers of Oklahoma who are the users of this equipment. We have to pause and contemplate how much we are costing our constituents, our farmers, our industry,” Jett said.

The value of the water being produced is “significantly” more than the cost of the meters, Howard said. “Having an ability to average over five years to not just lose their uses of that water is a greater resource than the cost of putting in these meters,” he said, adding that some farms use expensive center-pivot irrigation systems. “Knowing how much water is actually going out into the systems, they said, has made up for the cost.”

Howard also said the bill language allows for “alternative” systems of measurement for lower-use permit holders.

Senator Dusty Deevers (R-Elgin) questioned government’s role in regulating industry, suggesting civil lawsuits between private parties would perform the same function.

Groundwater sources such as aquifers flow underneath many private properties, Howard responded. “There has to be this oversight. There has to be accurate data so that we can protect all the landowners over that plane or that basin,” he said.

Howard offered to strike title on HB 3194, a common procedural tactic that allows a bill to advance while still a work-in-progress. The bill is now eligible to be heard on the Senate floor. A similar bill, SB 1341, authored by Howard and sponsored by Newton, is available to be heard in the House Agriculture Committee.

KPG’s Take

According to Oklahoma law, property owners are allowed to take groundwater from their land for domestic use without a permit. Other “beneficial” uses of ground water require permitting by OWRB. Permitted groundwater wells may be used by agriculture and animal producers, other industries, and rural water districts. According to data provided by OWRB, 58 percent of the permits issued in the state are for groundwater sources, totaling over 11,000. Permit holders are required to submit annual water usage reports to OWRB, but how can officials be sure these self-reported data are accurate?

State law also provides for OWRB to conduct periodic hydrologic investigations of groundwater basins to determine the “maximum annual yield” (MAY) that may be taken from an aquifer while allowing a minimum 20-year life of the basin. Once the MAY has been established, the amount of water allocated to each permit holder is proportionate to the amount of land that sits above the aquifer, the landowner’s “equal proportionate share.”

According to OWRB, the MAY of a major groundwater basin depends on certain factors, including:

· Total land area overlying the basin;

· The amount of water in storage in the basin;

· The rate of recharge to the basin and discharge from the basin;

· The basin's transmissivity (the rate that water flows horizontally through); and,

· The possibility of pollution from natural resources.

OWRB is required to review and update the hydrologic investigations every twenty years, if necessary. New studies for the Ogallala Aquifer in northwest Oklahoma and the panhandle are currently in progress.

According to NOAA Climate.gov, a website produced by the federal government, the agricultural economy of the eight-state Great Plains region almost exclusively depends on irrigation from the Ogallala Aquifer. However, producers are extracting water faster than it is being replenished, “which means that parts of the Ogallala Aquifer should be considered a nonrenewable resource.”

The water level of the aquifer has declined by five to 100 feet where it passes underneath the Oklahoma panhandle. According to the Fourth National Climate Assessment—a congressionally mandated report—water well outputs in the central and southern parts of the aquifer, covering Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas, are declining due to excessive pumping and prolonged, Dust-Bowl style drought.

What does all this mean? Western Oklahoma relies on groundwater from sources like the Ogallala Aquifer, which are fast depleting. Requiring groundwater permit holders to install metering devices on their wells is the least we can do as a state to protect our priceless natural resources.

KPG supports HB 3194 and SB 1341. We think you should, too.

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