Chickasha water plant project in design, engineering phase

CHICKASHA – The new water treatment plant that will be financed with a sales tax that voters endorsed last year is “still in the design and engineering phase,” City Manager Keith Johnson told Southwest Ledger recently.

Hopefully the city can put the project out for bids next spring and start construction sometime next summer, Johnson said.

Chickasha residents voted in a special election Aug. 8, 2023, on a proposal to renew and increase a sales tax that’s dedicated to capital improvements.

Local voters approved a permanent 1.25% (one and one-quarter cent) sales tax that went into effect Jan. 1, 2024, replacing the city’s previous 0.75% (three-quarters of a cent) Capital Improvement Project sales tax that expired Dec. 31, 2023. Passage of the new levy resulted in a net increase of half a cent in the sales tax, boosting the overall city sales tax from 3.75% to 4.25% (four and one-quarter cents per dollar). Including the state’s and Grady County’s levies, the total sales tax bite in Chickasha is 9.5 cents per dollar.

Revenue from the new levy is dedicated exclusively to capital improvements. Chickasha’s city sales tax generated $6,349,855 in February through June.

The new facility envisioned by the Chickasha Municipal Authority will be capable of producing up to 6 million gallons of potable water daily, with the ability to be expanded to 8 mgd. The treatment process will include pre-treatment, clarification, filtration and disinfection, the CMA said.

City officials have identified the parcel of land on which they want the new treatment plant built “and we’re in negotiations with the owner,” but no agreement has been reached, Mayor Zach Grayson told the Ledger on June 19.

Chickasha needs a second water source Chickasha receives its water from Fort Cobb Lake approximately 35 miles northwest in Caddo County. The raw lake water is conveyed to Chickasha’s water treatment plant on Genevieve Street through a concrete asbestos pipeline.

Chickasha’s contract with the Fort Cobb Master Conservancy District allows the municipality to draw up to 5,125 acrefeet of water (almost 1.67 billion gallons) per year, Office Manager Ginger Abbott told the Ledger.

The city’s metered pump station recorded Chickasha drawing 1.037 billion gallons of water from Fort Cobb Lake in Calendar Year 2022, and 1.093 billion gallons, an average of almost 3 million gallons per day, in CY 2023.

The FCMCD “wants us to find an alternative source of water” to supplement Chickasha’s withdrawals from Fort Cobb Reservoir, former Mayor Chris Mosley said. Lake Chickasha was a logical source of supplemental water because it’s relatively close – approximately nine miles west of Chickasha, in Caddo County – and the city owns it.

Freese & Nichols will spend up to $2 million to provide multiple phases of engineering services to the City of Chickasha during development of the new water treatment plant. The Oklahoma City company’s “engineering scope of services” will include an evaluation of the quality of drinking water sources and treatment process recommendations.

“It is assumed that Fort Cobb Reservoir will continue to be the city’s source” of drinking water, but Lake Chickasha “will be reviewed and considered as an alternative source,” the agreement with F&N provides.

Blending water from Lake Chickasha with water the city buys from Fort Cobb Reservoir “can meet your needs now and into the future,” F&N professional engineers Clay Herndon and Jason Cocklin told the city council on Jan. 16.

However, they did acknowledge that Lake Chickasha “has some water quality challenges.” Unless it’s first purified in a treatment plant, water from Lake Chickasha is unfit for human consumption.

Based on water quality data and flow rates from Fort Cobb Reservoir and Lake Chickasha, F&N will develop “a range of blended water quality scenarios for treatment parameters” and will develop recommended treatment design points “based on levels of risk.”

The new water treatment plant will resolve Lake Chickasha’s water quality issues, city officials and F&N engineers believe.

City’s water plant not up to the task Chickasha’s water treatment plant, which is at least 60-plus and perhaps 70-plus years old, is incapable of adequately treating water from either lake. Regardless of which activation date is accurate, the water plant has already surpassed its design capacity and useful life, and lacks modern technological advancements in water purification.

“We have some serious issues with our water infrastructure,” Johnson said. “We’re at risk of not being able” to meet demands imposed on the water delivery system. Chickasha’s water treatment plant has several “deficiencies,” he told the city council last summer.

At least one Chickasha family could save quite a few dollars if Chickasha’s water quality were to improve. The water they buy from the city to drink, to wash their dishes, to bathe in, and to flush their toilets is routed through five filters before it flows from their faucets.

Those filters include two carbon filters and two charcoal filters. Some of the filters are changed every 30 to 45 days, while the charcoal filters in a reverse osmosis water purification device are changed about every 12 months.

The elaborate residential filtering system was installed after a water heater became clogged with gunk from the city’s waterlines, the homeowners said.

First payment on water plant loan came due in March Chickasha’s new water treatment plant is estimated to cost approximately $74 million, including engineering, land acquisition, and construction.

A loan of up to $72 million to finance construction of the new, larger treatment plant was approved by the Oklahoma Water Resources Board.

After subtracting fees for the project bond counsel, financial adviser and local counsel, the trustee bank, and the OWRB’s costs of issuance, approximately $69 million remained available to spend on constructing the treatment plant. The loan proceeds will be coupled with $5 million in existing capital outlay funds, city officials said last year.

The loan provisions decree that the debt will be amortized over a maximum 31-year period. And just like a residential mortgage, principal payments will start low and gradually increase, while interest payments will start high and progressively decline.

The interest rate on the bonds will hover at 5.20% for the first 15 years, then drop a full point to 4.20% for nine years, then inch up to 4.325% during the last five years, OWRB records reflect.

The debt service requirement on Chickasha’s loan – the amount needed each year to meet the principal and interest payments – totals $4.49 million this year, $4.142 million in 2025, and approximately $4.14 million each year thereafter, a spreadsheet shows.

The Chickasha Municipal Authority’s first payment, interest only, was almost $2 million and came due March 15.

The final principal and interest payment on the OWRB loan, $4,061,000, will be due in mid-September 2053.