The Oklahoma City Council approved contracts Tuesday that could help bring more water to the metro from southeast Oklahoma.
The council approved seven separate construction design contracts worth more than #13 million, The Journal Record’s Brian Brus reports:
Two more design contracts remain to be awarded, said Marsha Slaughter, municipal utilities department director. Construction is expected to begin by early 2018. When all sections are built in 2021, the line will carry more than 100 million gallons per day from the Atoka and McGee Creek reservoirs in Atoka County to storage in Lake Stanley Draper in Oklahoma City. City Council members approved the items without comment Tuesday. The city has been in a federal legal battle with the Choctaw and Chickasaw nations for years over water rights at Sardis Lake, just 50 miles away from the Atoka water supply. The pipeline ultimately could help transport water from Sardis to the city.
The city already owns 60-inch concrete pipes that move 85 million gallons a day from the area. But the current line is nearly 50 years old, and it was recently out of service for 10 months because of flooding in the South Canadian River that damaged a support structure.
From Brus:
Research for the city’s water needs conducted in 2003 and 2009 concluded that Oklahoma City will need a parallel Atoka line by 2021 to meet the growing population’s needs. A conceptual plan was completed in 2014 to develop a phased implementation. The unanimous council vote Tuesday awarded contracts to Olsson Associates ($1.6 million), Triad Design Group (two $1.6 million contracts), Johnson & Associates ($1.9 million), C.H. Guernsey & Co. ($1.7 million), MacArthur Associated Consultants ($2.2 million) and Smith Roberts Baldischwiler ($2.7 million).
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