Powered by The Oklahoman MainStreetOK.com Panhandle

The Oklahoman Digital Delivery

While Oklahoma’s recent combination of oppressive heat and lack of rainfall might seem troublesome, state officials say it’s not time to worry — yet.

The summer of 2008 so far has been pretty average. Some regions are wetter than normal, some drier than normal. But most aren’t anywhere near dangerously dry levels.

Folks in Guymon might disagree.

The Panhandle’s largest city already had been under a water rationing order for six weeks when the pump broke on a well Wednesday. It could be next week before the pump is fixed, public works director Ivan Clark said.

The well pumped 250,000 gallons a day. That equates to 50 gallons a day per household, Clark said.

As a result, Guymon officials are asking residents to curb usage even more than required by the rationing order.

Residents seem to be complying, as evidenced by Guymon’s slightly lower total usage since the well pump broke, Clark said.

Outside of Guymon and some other western Oklahoma locales, it’s just a normal summer: mostly hot and dry, said Derek Arndt, the state’s assistant climatologist.

The state’s eastern half was so flush from earlier rains, “this is just a dry blip on the radar,” Arndt said.

On Sunday, Oklahoma City’s water system pumped out 172 million gallons of water. That’s approaching the system’s all-time daily high of about 187 million gallons of water pumped in a day, said Debbie Ragan, spokeswoman for the city’s utilities department.

“We’ve got high demand, but we’re not at peak demand just yet,” she said.

Low water pressure problems are hitting areas west of Council Road along Interstate 40. Today, the city is expected to ask citizens throughout the city to practice voluntary water conservation, Ragan said.

Also today, officials expect the Lake Overholser water plant to reach its pumping capacity of 25 million gallons of water a day.

In times of drought, the state Department of Environmental Quality keeps track of towns and cities under water rationing orders. Although a few municipalities have imposed rationing, there’s not been a need for a comprehensive list this summer, agency spokeswoman Skylar McElhaney said.

The Oklahoma Water Resources Board monitors levels in the state’s aquifers and about 500 wells, but typically it takes a while for a drought’s effects to show up, said Brian Vance, the water board’s spokesman.

“The wells we monitor are deeper wells, so you’re going to see a longer lag time between a dry period and a well declining,” Vance said.

His agency also fields calls from farmers and ranchers when a well dries up. Aside from the Panhandle, those calls have been sparse this summer, Vance said.