Norman — Built in the 1960s, Lake Thunderbird has been the City of Norman’s main source of drinking water for a long time now.
It supplies the city with 80 percent of its drinking water, as well as supplying Midwest City and Del City.
It’s a body of water that most residents in Norman rely on for life’s most essential resource, yet one expert who spoke during the City of Norman’s fourth of eight water forums Thursday night at City Hall said the city’s residents are helping to drive the water quality at Lake Thunderbird further down each year.
Dr. Baxter Vieux, a civil engineering and environmental science professor at the University of Oklahoma, said the need to keep a pretty lawn is a big problem for the lake’s water quality.
“There’s a culprit,” Vieux said. “And we’re all a little bit guilty.”
Vieux said residents and others dump about 20 tons of fertilizer in Lake Thunderbird each year. He said the fertilizer in run-off water causes algae to grow at an alarming rate, causing the lake’s water quality to drop and creating an environment where fish and other animals may not be able to get as much oxygen as they need.
But it’s not just Norman and its residents who are the problem. Several other cities, including Oklahoma City, lie within Lake Thunderbird’s watershed.
Vieux said urban development in the Lake Thunderbird watershed is expected to double by 2030 as sprawl creeps into the outer limits of Norman, Midwest City and Oklahoma City. He said all the added impervious surfaces — things like concrete that don’t allow water to soak in — will cause the lake’s water quality to decrease further.
The added concrete and other impervious surfaces also will increase sediment levels in the lake, diminishing its storage capacity, Vieux said.
“We can’t do nothing and expect the problem to go away,” he said.
Vieux indicated that Norman residents may have to voluntarily stop fertilizing and that cities like Norman will have to take some action to ensure the quality of Lake Thunderbird — already classified as a Sensitive Water Supply by state officials because it has too much algae growing in it — doesn’t further degrade.
Other cities that lie within the lake’s watershed will have to do their parts, as well, Vieux said.
“Norman can’t do it alone,” he said. “Everybody has to work together to do that.”
Andrew Knittle366-3540aknittle@normantranscript.com
