It may be argued that water is taken for granted in our region. Though it statistically falls now in fewer more intense storms, and we do experience bouts of drought, the rain does fall, and the Ozarks are crisscrossed with springs, rivers, streams and man-made lakes.
Our communities sit on an expansive aquifer. That aquifer is where most communities in southwest Missouri get their water, through private and city owned wells.
When Roddy Rogers, executive director of SWMO Water, discusses the Ozark Aquifer and the future of water in the Missouri Ozarks, there is just one factor driving his concerns — it isn’t rainfall, it’s the remarkable growth in development and extraction the region has seen in the last half-century and the question of whether that aquifer can keep up.
“We've got the same amount of water now that we did when the dinosaurs were here, but we're using it much faster,” Rogers explained. “Water is a closed cycle, which is just a fancy way of saying, we've got all the water we've ever had, we got all the water we're ever going to have." But Rogers said “we're using water 24/7, 365 days a year, and we're taking it out now faster than it can replenish itself in that water cycle. We're using water for more and more things."
Rogers describes Southwest Missouri Water as a coalition of utilities and water providers that have been working since 2003 to establish our region’s next water source.
"We looked at groundwater,” he said, “we looked at building new lakes. We looked at existing reservoirs, and this is the best alternative for the long term.” According to Rogers, “groundwater is not the reliable source for the future.”
Rogers said his organization did a study that found the region will face a gap of about 53 million gallons of additional water needs by the year 2060. “So, we needed to fill that gap,” he said. “And as of January, we were approved for a reallocation of storage from this lake here at Stockton to meet about 70% of that gap need."
That allocation means 38 million gallons of water a day have been designated for use by SWMO Water partners in the future. Getting final approval to reallocate millions of gallons from Stockon was no small feat — the Army Corps of Engineers had to consider all the uses being made at the lake, including hydropower and recreation.
Now that the Army Corps has made the reallocation official, he said SWMO Water partners need to work on the infrastructure to make use of it.
“When we did the preliminary studies from just a conceptual level, the infrastructure to serve all of southwest Missouri is for the pipes and the pumps and the tanks is probably going to be about $1 billion. And that's dated. It's probably going to be a little more than that,” Rogers explained. “We've got to be responsible how we're going to pay for that. But our stakeholders can do that."
Rogers said SWMO water includes 16 counties and municipalities, including Springfield, Carthage, Joplin, Monett, Mount Vernon, Nixa, Willard, Ozark and Republic "as well as several utilities and water providers,” said Rogers. And, he added “there are about 11 that are members of what's called a utility commission, which is a public entity that would actually implement the project."
As Rogers puts it “we're all going to need the same water, and it's better for us to collaborate and work together than to compete with each other for it."
He said that cooperation was essential to getting the Corps to reallocate the water at Stockton. He points to issues out West, with competing water interests and a more arid climate as an example of what he hopes to avoid here.
While drought conditions have waxed and waned in the Ozarks over the last few years, Rogers said “if you look at the last 25, 30 years, it's been a really wet period. We are due for another drought, and it's due to be a long one."
As he looks to the future, Rogers said, “Wall Street firms say water is a $1 trillion opportunity, and it's going to be the resource that defines this century, just like oil defined the last century.”
As we wrap up the first quarter of this century, the Ozarks are one of the fastest-growing regions in Missouri with cities like Branson, Rogersville and Nixa doubling and even tripling in population since the year 2000. The U.S Bureau of Economic Analysis finds the GDP of all industries in Greene and Christian counties alone has tripled in the last 25 years.
Rogers said water touches every aspect of life, and in a future with more people doing more business in an Ozarks that is facing more severe heat and the risk of extreme drought, Rogers and SWMO Water are working to make sure our region has a reliable source of water. He said he has seen what water means to a community in need firsthand.
“I've had a lot of opportunity to be in the Third World in places where they don't have water,” Rogers said, “you know, education, economy, health system, medical, food, the things that make up the fabric of life. Water is a common thread through them all.” He said communities of the world cannot sustain those important parts of modern life without water.
“And in 2010 or 11, I got to be in Haiti after the first earthquake, putting in some portable water systems. And every morning I'd walk past these refugee camp shanties that were made out of cardboard, wood and bed sheets, plastic, whatever they could get for cover. And these really cute little kids would come running out, and they want to tug on my shirt and hold my hand and walk with me. I'm talking 60 or 70 of them. It was overwhelming. I'm an engineer, not a rock star. And finally, one morning, I asked the two Haitian friends I was working with. I said, 'Louis Fauvel, why do these kids treat me so special and for a little smile?' And he says, 'because they know why you're here, and they believe, if you can bring them water, you can bring them anything.' And I've never forgotten that in a place that has seen the world run dry, so to speak, that even the children understand waterfalls in the hierarchy of things. And that's the kind of perspective I hope we can establish here in southwest Missouri and also sustained, because if we can get a water source in place, our future is golden.”