Del City agrees to sell water to City of Norman

Funds will be used to upgrade water plant

By Lea Terry
Midwest City Beacon

At the August 5 city council meeting, Del City approved two plans related to the city’s water supply. One project will bring in money by selling surplus water to the City of Norman, and that funding will help support the other project, which involves improving the city’s water treatment plant.

Ward 1 Councilperson Michael Dean, who is Del City’s appointee to the board of the Central Oklahoma Master Conservancy District, has been working on the project to sell excess water to Norman for over a decade. Both cities are members of COMCD, and the contract is scheduled to be approved by COMCD at its September 1 meeting.

Under the contract, Del City will sell 300 million gallons to Norman each year for $204,000 and an additional 200 million gallons if needed. Dean said this still leaves plenty of water to support Del City’s needs. Several decades ago, Del City purchased one-seventh of the water in Lake Thunderbird and has now paid off that loan. Dean said Del City only uses a portion of it water each year, allowing the city to sell surplus water.

“This is going to provide a significant income for the city and provide us some return for all of the money we’ve spent over the years paying off this lake,” Dean said.

One of the main uses for the additional income is to support the planned upgrades to the city’s water treatment plant, which City Manager JD Hock discussed at the meeting. The city hired SRB, an Oklahoma City-based engineering and consulting firm, to conduct an in-depth assessment of the plant. The city now has that report, which includes upgrade recommendations ranging from $1,000 to $40 million. The city plans to bring council members in to speak with the engineers and with water treatment staff about the evaluation and recommendations.

“Once you all have had a chance to dig into that report, then we’ll come back on the horseshoe and start talking about projects and funding sources and future planning,” Hock said.

Mayor Floyd Eason praised the initiative and said he was proud that the city was being proactive, adding that the city wanted to know what the weak points and strong points were, as well as what needed to be addressed now and what could be addressed over time.

“We’re not waiting for something to break, we’re going out there and looking for the high probability problems and solving them before they do break,” Eason said.

This story has been corrected to show the accurate amount of surplus water that Del City has agreed to sell.