May 18 – Joplin officials continue to position the city to ensure an adequate water supply for the future.
A $2.5 million allocation for water supply was on the list of projects for the city’s three-eighths-cent capital improvements that sales tax voters extended April 2.
Dan Johnson, the city’s public works director, confirmed after a council work session Monday where water resources were discussed that the allocation will be available for a regional effort to divert water from Stockton Lake to the Joplin area if needed in the future.
Roddy Rogers, executive director of Southwest Missouri Water, a nonprofit organization working to secure additional water supplies for 16 Southwest Missouri counties, spoke during the work session. He spoke about the rising cost of water now driven by the trading of water as a commodity on Wall Street.
He said Southwest Missouri Water is still working to obtain permits from the Army Corps of Engineers to eventually tap into Stockton Lake and pipe water from there to the Joplin area. Rogers said this could take years and require pipelines to be built to transport water from the lake, 90 miles northeast of Joplin.
“What we’re doing with Southwest Missouri Water takes a lot of foresight and a lot of planning,” he said.
The American Water Works Association has set a vision for water availability in 2050, and Rogers says that “the long-term view is the key to the future of water.”
“We have to determine our future. We can’t wait for it to come to us” when it comes to planning for future water resources, he said.
“We’re right on track with what we’ve been doing with what’s going on in the global water industry,” he said.
Owning a share of the resource is an asset that can eventually be sold to another member of the coalition if the city doesn’t need the water.
He noted that Joplin is where the coalition effort was launched by the city and Missouri American, the utility that supplies Joplin with water. At a meeting at Joplin City Hall in 2003, members voted to form a joint municipal utilities committee to create a water supply district to identify and secure potential new future water sources for the growing region. The group first used the name Tri-State Water Coalition.
The coalition has since been reorganized to include representatives only from Southwest Missouri. Rogers said it was determined that water from sources in Missouri could not be exported to Kansas and Oklahoma, giving the coalition the name Tri-State. So the focus became Southwest Missouri.
Stockton Lake was identified as the closest and best resource to feed this area. It would be available to supplement a 1,500-acre reservoir near Shoal Creek in an area southeast of Joplin that Missouri American plans to build. The reservoir is needed to address a projected long-term water supply shortage in the area, but it may not meet all future long-term needs, Rogers said. That’s why Missouri American and Joplin need the Stockton Lake option, which requires water to be piped from Stockton to the reservoir, he said.
Currently, about 85% of Joplin’s water comes from Shoal Creek, but the supply is supplemented by springs, according to Missouri American.
However, the reservoir plan was opposed by some of the 50 landowners who would be affected. The site is on the east side of Interstate 49 north of Route MM, west of Nighthawk Road and south of Elder Road.
Some landowners in the area of the proposed reservoir opposed the effort and commissioned a study that resulted in the opinion that the proposed location for the reservoir will not hold water. The company’s own analysis showed it to be a workable site. Eminent domain will remain an option but is not the first choice, Missouri officials have said.
Approval from the Army Corps of Engineers is also required to construct the reservoir.
The water utility reported that its most recent work on the permit included providing information to the Corps of Engineers to prepare an environmental assessment on the reservoir’s impacts on wetlands and streams as part of the permitting process.
Field studies on endangered species related to the project have been completed, the company reported. These include Indiana bats, northern long-eared and hoary bats, Ozark cavefish, Neosho mucket, rabbit’s foot, western fan clam and purple lilliput.
However, the reservoir alone will not be enough to supply the growing Joplin area with enough water in the future, especially during long periods of drought, Rogers said. That’s why Stockton Lake as a feeder is an important resource.
A 2010 Department of Natural Resources study predicted that population growth in Jasper and Newton counties could grow from 180,000 to 220,000 by 2030. New water sources could then be needed, coalition members said at the time.
“What’s a better way going forward for the city to own some of that water itself and Missouri American own some?” Rogers told the council.
