Springfield considers sharing water supply

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. -- With robust water levels and thirsty neighbors, this city is set to consider if it should share its supply.

Several fast-growing communities around Springfield depend on wells, unlike Springfield, which also gets its supply from three lakes, the James River and a spring.

Springfield's City Utilities Board will evaluate if sharing its water resources is a good idea.

City Utilities general manager John Twitty said, "There are two ways to go. The board can say we don't want to be a wholesale water supplier, or we can be a regional water supplier with terms that don't cost our existing customers any more."

The publicly owned utility has had discussions with Rogersville, Ozark, Strafford, Willard and Republic about their future water supply needs.

"I wouldn't characterize these as serious discussions," Twitty said. "They've been more along the lines of informal inquiries. They want to know what our parameters would be if we were to deliver wholesale water to them."

The board will hold a retreat Friday at its headquarters. It likely will explore challenges and costs involved with sharing Springfield water. It also will look at updating Springfield's water conservation plan.

Rogersville Mayor Jack Cole said the city's three wells currently can handle a fourfold population increase.

But with the city's 2,500 population growing at more than 10 percent a year, he sees a tie-in with Springfield's water system as a possibility down the road.

Ozark City Manager Collin Quigley said his community, with 4,400 residents in 1990, has been growing at 8 to 10 percent annually for about 15 years. As it continues to add new wells, the notion of trying to link to Springfield's water has been contemplated.

"We can't continue to put holes in the ground indefinitely," he said.

And Springfield has a healthy water supply. Springfield relied on wells and springs for water until 1929, when it added McDaniel Lake to its water supply. Then, Fellows Lake north of town was added in 1957.

In 1996, the board worked out a deal with the Army Corps of Engineers to buy water in Stockton Lake.

Springfield can take up to 8.1 billion gallons of water a year from the lake, with an option of taking 8.1 billion more gallons if needed, at a cost of about $6 million. The utility must take the second water allocation by 2016, or the utility loses the rights to it.

"It's safe to say that's a 35- to 40-year solution for us in Springfield," Twitty said.

Work already is being done to study water levels in the region. The Corps of Engineers and Greene County are splitting the cost of mapping groundwater levels and developing a computer model to predict groundwater changes. Data from more than 100 water wells in Greene and Christian counties will be analyzed.