Groundwater in the News

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By Amanda Parks, Staff Writer | The Woodward News

Published September 13, 2025

WOODWARD, Okla. — Farmers and ranchers from Mooreland and across Major and Harper counties packed a public hearing this week as the Oklahoma Water Resources Board reviewed its first major update to groundwater permit limits since 1983.

At issue: a proposed order that would cut allocations for new groundwater permits from one acre-foot per acre annually to about half that amount. The change comes after a long-anticipated update to the agency’s maximum annual yield study for the Beaver-North Canadian River groundwater basin.

OK Energy Today

September 10, 2025

NORIT Activated Carbon (NORIT), a global leader in purification technologies with an operation located in Pryor, Oklahoma has validated that its thermal reactivation process is capable of consistently achieving 99.98% destruction of PFAS compounds in spent granular activated carbon from municipal water treatment applications.

KOSU | By Graycen Wheeler

Published September 2, 2025 at 5:15 AM CDT

In early July, one of the hottest stretches this summer, one of Guymon’s city water wells clunked to a halt.

Not just any well — this was Well Number 21, the city’s best well. The one that pumps a quarter of the water Guymon uses each day.

Barbara Haberock, Oklahoma Voice

July 25, 2025

OKLAHOMA CITY - The Oklahoma House during the interim will take a look at dark money in elections, abandoned medical marijuana facilities and water depletion.

Those are just a few of the 127 House interim studies that will be held.

KGOU | By Chloe Bennett-Steele, StateImpact Oklahoma

Published July 22, 2025 at 8:29 AM CDT

On Friday, the Environmental Protection Agency said it will eliminate the Office of Research and Development and reduce its workforce.

The termination includes the Robert S. Kerr Environmental Research Center in Ada, which has undergone reductions-in-force in recent months.

July 15, 2025

Crude oil spills — and gasoline, diesel and motor oil spills — can have a long shelf life, 33 years in this case. The pollution recently bubbled to the surface of the public record, although the extent of the spill, and the kind of petroleum product it was, could not be determined.

Kayla Branch, The Frontier

June 22, 2025

Efforts to more accurately track commercial groundwater use in Oklahoma failed again this year at the Legislature after facing tight deadlines and some pushback from agricultural interests. 

by Em Luetkemeyer

May 22, 2025

The Trump administration’s proposed budget cuts billions in Environmental Protection Agency funds, but Rep. Tom Cole, the top appropriator in the House, doesn’t want environmental research in his district to become collateral damage.

The Environmental Protection Agency said Wednesday that it plans to weaken limits on some “forever chemicals” in drinking water that were finalized last year, while maintaining standards for two common ones.

Doyle Rice and Jana Hayes, The Oklahoman

May 9, 2025