While distracted by marijuana farms, your rights were stripped
SB1352 was the smokescreen for their real intentions housed in HB3194; now on its way to the governor and soon to be dipping into your well house and extracting money from your pocketbook
This Oklahoma State legislative session contained several bills focused on water and water rights. If you live in rural Oklahoma and have a well, you need to pay attention. If your well was registered, you can look up your well information on the Oklahoma Water Resources Board (OWRB) General Viewer. As far as I can tell, wells drilled after about 1982 should be notated on this map. This is the information you can find:
You can find your Well ID number, construction date, the depth, depth where the driller hit water and then the approximate well yield in gallons per minute. Note that there is no permit number listed on residential wells. This doesn’t mean that the OWRB can’t retroactively add one, but it is just something to ponder as you read through the bills that want to meter the water coming out of your wells for “research;” or so they say.
If you have a well drilled prior to ~1982, you might have more luck with this database: OWRB Water Well Record Search. And if you can’t find your well, it just means it was never registered by the owner or driller.
2024 Legislative Session Bills Focused on Water Metering
One of the bills that made all the headlines, focused specifically on metering commercial cannibis operations, that folks say use up to 6 gallons of water per plant, per day. Depending on the size of the operation, that can equate to tens of thousands of gallons of water per day.
SB1352, authored by Senators Bullard and Boren and Rep. Humphreys, authored a new law that authorizes a fee for water used for growing commercial marijuana at $1.25/1000 gallons. The revenue from this fee would be distributed the following ways:
If a municipality collects the fee: (16%) Municipality, (84%) State Treasurer for deposit in the Reservoir Capital Investment Fund.
If a county collects the fee: (12%) County, (4%) Emergency Medical Service Districts in County, (84%) State Treasurer for deposit in the Reservoir Capital Investment Fund.
This bill went through the Energy and Telecommunications Committee on February 8, 2024 and passed 10-2, and then went through the Appropriations Committee on February 21, 2024 and passed 13-7. On that same day, the title was stricken, meaning it cannot get scheduled on the Senate floor until the title is placed back on the bill.
This bill received a lot of push back because of how it might affect small local-business owners already struggling to make ends meet and allow the larger internationally owned conglomerates to eat up more of the market. The bill could be construed as punishing punishing the law-abiding citizens and benefiting black-market grows.
This law made NO mention of metering residential wells.
As of April 29, 2024, essentially this bill is dead.
That’s why “they” always run more than one bill….
And by the way, who are “THEY”?
The legislators aren’t, in large part, proposing these bills. Bills are proposed by special interests, elected officials or everyday citizens. Legislators facilitate the bill language through their staff legal writers and then agree to run them.
Sometimes they just agree to have their name placed as an author but have no intention of ever doing anything to move it through the system. Once the bill has a number, they turn it over to the lobbyists (or citizen advocates) to drum up support. If they really don’t like a bill, but considered it their obligation as an elected official to carry it for a citizen or special interest group, they might even quietly tell the Committee Chairs to not hear the bills. Speaking from experience, this is frustrating.
Sometimes, however, the legislators are forthright with the language proposer and are motivated to help the bills through. Thankfully, we’ve had great luck with our elected representatives who have agreed to carry our bills.
I find it interesting to know WHO proposed the language in the bills. I do not know WHO “THEY” are for this particular bill.
Bait and Switch - Here comes HB3194
Did you think water well metering for the 10,000 gallons/day commercial cannibis growers was a good idea? In one of the hottest markets in OK, it might be prudent to protect our water supply from overuse from a bunch of internationally owned organizations that are literally using our naturally resources for their own gain.
I get it.
It got a lot of press, for sure.
But you know what you didn’t hear about? HB3194.
HB3194 modifies Title 82, Section 1020.19 in two very important ways.
HB3194 takes away the landowners option to request that the OWRB require water wells be metered and instead gives the power to OWRB to make that designation without the input of the landowners (more government bureaucracy and CONTROL, less citizen and landowner input).
HB3194 requires that all water wells requiring a permit must be equipped with water well flow meters (What water wells require a permit? Only commercial? Including residential? Are existing wells grandfathered? How will this be implemented?).
The bill language also insinuates that the OWRB *OWNS* the water, which is not true.
The data collected will be used for the annual groundwater use report.
Paragraph B states that a permit holder will be allocated a five-year cumulative maximum annual yield they may make from the basin (of course after paying the annual permit fee), noting that they can exceed the maximum annual yield in any year of the five-year allocation provided they don’t exceed their five-year cumulative max.
What is missing from this bill?
There is no mention of a fee being imposed on the amount of water drawn from the basin and quantified by the required water well metering.
If something can be monitored and quantified, then it can be monetized. I’m predicting that once the OWRB gets their data collection system updated, hires a bunch of people to dole out water well permits and monitor water well metering compliance, “their” handlers will be back with a new bill.
You know why I know?
Because government hiring people to implement laws and monitor and report the water usage in water basins across the state isn’t free. In fact, OWRB put out an estimate on how much it would cost them to implement this program.
OWRB has stated that it will need between $1 and $2 million in one-time funds for real-time data entry needs related to this measure. Additionally, OWRB will need 7 FTEs for the division overseeing these permits and 1 additional legal FTE for a total of $1.2M in operational costs. It will need an additional $250K in operation costs for the travel of 3 field agents. This bill will cost the Oklahoma taxpayers between $2.45M-$3.45M in the first year with recurring annual fiscal impacts to the state budget of $1.45M/year.
“They” just lured the legislature in with an incremental change taking power from the people and handing it to an UNELECTED government agency with the POWER to withhold or allocate water and FINE you if you don’t comply.
This bill miraculously SAILED through both houses without an amendment; more grift for the grifters. This bill has been sent to the Oklahoma governor for signature to become law.
“They’ll” make their money back and then some, don’t you worry.
I think the Oklahoma Citizen deserves to know who “THEY” are. Don’t you?
Oh… and who really owns the water?
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say NOT THE GOVERNMENT!
Pay attention. There is more nonsense coming your way.
Are you interested in learning more and helping hold a rogue "state instrumentality” accountable to the people? PIKE OFF OTA (501 c4) and Oklahomans for Responsible Transportation, Foundation (501 c3) are leading the charge in legal injunctive avenues and legislative reform and they could use your help. They are trying to dismantle a corrupt Goliath within our state and are doing a great job. Be part of the solution!
www.pikeoffota.com
Join us on Facebook as well.