Missouri Basin and Arkansas-Rio Grande-Texas Gulf Regions – Oklahoma-Texas Area Office

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Oklahoma-Texas Area Office Overview

The Oklahoma-Texas Area Office (OTAO) is located in Austin, Texas, with a field office in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Kansas:

The OTAO is responsible for the southern portion of the state which constitutes the Arkansas River Basin. Reclamation’s Wichita Project (Cheney Dam and Reservoir) provides municipal and industrial water to the City of Wichita while also providing significant recreation, fish and wildlife, and flood control benefits. The project provided over 33,838 acre-feet of water in 2003 to an estimated population of 344,000. Approximately 800,000 people visited this Reclamation Project in 2003.

Oklahoma:

The Reclamation program in Oklahoma emphasizes municipal and industrial water supply. There are six projects with seven major reservoirs in the state, five of them constructed primarily to provide water to cities and towns. They are the Norman, Washita Basin (Foss and Ft. Cobb reservoirs), Arbuckle, Mountain Park and McGee Creek projects. In addition to providing city water, the W.C. Austin Project provided irrigation water to more than 45,000 acres of farmland in 2003. The principal crop is cotton.

In 2003, the Oklahoma projects provided 133,482 acre-feet of municipal and industrial water to 18 cities with a population of approximately 1.4 million. State parks are operated at all of the reservoirs, except Lake of the Arbuckles which is included in the Chickasaw National Recreation Area administered by the National Park Service. Over 4.3 million people visited Reclamation projects in the state in 2003.

Texas:

The OTAO is responsible for Reclamation activities in all of Texas except for the area west of the Pecos River Basin. Much of the program emphasis is on municipal and industrial water, although irrigation is the primary purpose at the San Angelo Project. Reclamation projects provide municipal and industrial water to over one million people, flood protection, and numerous recreation sites. In 2003, these sites provided recreation opportunities for over 1.3 million visitors. The Nueces River Project provides municipal and industrial water to the Corpus Christi area. In addition to irrigation, the San Angelo Project provides for the integrated operation of Twin Buttes Reservoir with Lake Nasworthy to meet the municipal water requirements of the city of San Angelo. The project also provides fish and wildlife, recreation, and flood control benefits. The Canadian River Project provides municipal and industrial water to 11 cities in the Texas Panhandle including Amarillo and Lubbock. This project also provides flood control and recreation benefits to the area.