OACD

OKLAHOMA ASSOCIATION OF
CONSERVATION DISTRICTS

MEDIA NOTICE

Contact: Clay Pope, Executive Director
Oklahoma Association of Conservation Districts
(405) 699-2087 or claypope@pldi.net

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Oklahoma City gets early Christmas Present from Western Oklahoma Farmers and Ranchers; OKC’s drinking water being protected by voluntary agriculture practices.

Oklahoma City—Christmas has come early to the citizens of central Oklahoma in the form of the work being done by farmers and ranchers to protect the quality of the water in the North Canadian River, a primary source of drinking water for Oklahoma City, according to Trey Lam, President of the Oklahoma Association of Conservation Districts (OACD).

“The Agriculture producers and other landowners in the North Canadian River Watershed should be commended for the outstanding work they are doing to protect this vital watershed,” Lam said. “Because of their good efforts, the folks downstream will see cleaner water flowing into Lake Overholser, one of Oklahoma City’s primary sources of drinking water.”

Lams comments were made in conjunction with a ceremony marking the first 20 thousand acres of crop land that had been converted from conventional tillage to no-till in the watershed, a system of crop production that controls erosion and reduces run-off from farm ground. The ceremony also highlighted the first 8 miles of stream bank being protected by riparian buffer strips and the conversion of over 500 acres of highly erodible crop land to pasture. All of these practices were undertaken through voluntary, locally-led conservation initiatives including state conservation cost-share programs, USDA Farm Bill conservation programs and Clean Water Act section 319 water quality initiatives managed by the Oklahoma Conservation Commission in partnership with local Conservation Districts and the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS).

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“By converting these crop acres from conventional crop production to no-till, we can greatly reduce the amount of soil going into the water of the North Canadian and with it the amount of nutrients and bacteria going into the river,” Lam said. “This work in conjunction with the restoration of the vegetative buffers along the stream banks and the conversion of these highly erodible acres from crop production to grass shows that agriculture is stepping up to the plate to do its part to protect the watershed.”

According to Lam, recent findings in portions of the North Canadian River and the Oklahoma River (the portion of the North Canadian River in Oklahoma County) have shown high levels of nutrients and bacteria in the water. The efforts undertaken by the Farmers and Ranchers in the Watershed will help reduce any contribution agriculture played in these increased levels.

“The practices these producers are doing are on a cost-share basis, so they have to pay money out of their own pocket to get these improvements on the ground,” Lam said. “Still, even with this additional cost, the farmers and ranchers of our state are willing to do the work to protect our natural resources. We can only hope that the other contributors to the water challenges in this watershed, most notably the cities and towns who have problems with discharges from sewer lagoons, leaky sewer pipes and run-off from yards, businesses and recreational facilities will also do their part to address their contributions to the water quality challenges in this river the way that agriculture has.”

Clay Pope, OACD Executive Director agreed.

“The Farmers and Ranchers of our state are the original environmentalists,” Pope said. “It should be noted that we have never undertaken an initiative to address water quality in Oklahoma where we have not run out of money before we ran out of agriculture producers who wanted to help do their part to protect the water of our state. The work to help protect this watershed was not mandated by the state or federal government. In fact, back in 2004, well before anyone else was even looking at issues in this watershed, the landowners of this area, through their locally-elected conservation district boards, started pushing for this project. Two years ago, the Oklahoma Conservation Commission and NRCS, because of funding constraints, were finally able to come up with the resources necessary to undertake this effort. It should be noted that the agriculture producers in this area initiated this effort because they wanted to do what was right. We can only hope that the rest of Oklahoma will follow the example set by these true stewards of the land. We call all take pride in the effort these landowners are doing to protect the environment.”

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