A report by state environmental officials found that most of Oklahoma's waters do not meet federal water quality standards.
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The vast majority of lakes, streams and rivers in Oklahoma do not meet federal water quality standards for pollution, according to a draft report released last week by state environmental officials.
The report, prepared by the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality, listed only five bodies of water in the state that are clear of harmful levels of pollution.
Still, that’s better than in previous years. Mark Derichsweiler, an engineering manager in the DEQ’s water quality division, said it’s the first time any Oklahoma waters monitored by the state have met all of the federal water quality standards.
Four of the five bodies of water are near Lake Hudson in northeastern Oklahoma. They are Spring Creek, Fourteen Mile Creek, Saline Creek and Five Mile Creek. The other is East Fork Creek, a branch of the Glover River in southeastern Oklahoma, he said.
According to the report, 94 percent of lake acres do not meet federal water quality standards and almost 80 percent of rivers in Oklahoma have some form of pollution as determined by federal and state benchmarks.
Such reports are required every two years under the federal Clean Water Act. The state DEQ still must submit its report to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for final approval.
Derichsweiler said the report’s findings can be misleading, because the most of the state’s 4,064 bodies of water are not monitored for quality and others are not included in the report. He said the fact that five clean bodies of water is found is attributable to increased information gathering by the DEQ, not because there has been a change in the quality of the water.
J.D. Strong, the chief of staff for Oklahoma’s secretary of the environment, said the state does not have enough money to monitor all of its waters. He said other states are in similar straits.
The most common type of pollutants in streams listed in the report were bacteria, including E. coli and pathogens from feces. For lakes, it was lack of oxygen.
“We’re using standards that have been in place for a long time,” Strong said. “They’re health-based standards, and it is alarming and it is significant the amount of bacterial impairment we have across the state.”
Earl Hatley, an environmentalist and a riverkeeper of the Grand Lake watershed in northeastern Oklahoma, said that it’s not accurate to say that any Oklahoma waters meet all water quality standards, citing a state fish advisory because of high mercury levels. All of Oklahoma’s waters fall under the advisory.
“You can’t take your grandchild, as I would like to do, to catch the fish in your own pond,” he said.
Derichaweiler said the advisory is not included in the DEQ’s report.
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