The City of Norman's boundaries encompass a reservoir called Lake Thunderbird, and the city draws from the reservoir for drinking water. The city has a treatment facility to process the water before it is used.
The city also sits atop the Garber-Wellington aquifer, an underground lake of water of about 3,000 square miles. The city itself only covers 190 square miles. The eastern part of the aquifer sits relatively shallow beneath the ground while the western part is moderately deep at 600-800 feet. Norman is on the western edge of the aquifer, and owns numerous wells dug into it. It draws water out of the aquifer as well as the lake.
Well, that is what cities do. They divvy up the cost of fetching, cleaning, and distributing water for the residents of the city. I'm glad they do that. They seem to do a pretty good job of it. They probably had to acquire some property under eminent domain laws to get it all working. If they did, I'm happy they could and did so, I guess. Pretty innocuous stuff, and that is what you expect from a city government. Most residents don't really care about this stuff in any great detail, they just appreciate that it works.
That was me. That's what I thought local governments did. At least until this article appeared in the local paper on May 18, 2011.
My curiosity was peaked when the "expert" said the lake was on "life support". I've come to understand that when experts use words like that to describe anything that exists on planet earth, we're all in big trouble. Not the trouble that comes from a cataclysmic event that is about to occur on earth, but the trouble that comes from a totalitarian, pro-slavery government about to hack off another limb of the freedom we all once enjoyed.
The hyperbole was being used to aid the argument to enact various new ordinances related to a Storm Water Master Plan, put together by the city council ostensibly to address improvements to rain removal from the city. Innocuous sounding, isn't it? It should be innocuous, but it isn't. How can you turn rain water removal into a tool of oppression, into something evil? Turns out they and whole host of others have been counting the ways.
I really began to be irked when I read "One of the proposals calls for the creation of a “designated water quality protection zone inclusive of the Lake Thunderbird watershed,” while the other seeks to create a zoning overlay district for the area."
All that just to get rain water out of the city. But wait, there's more. "Ezzell said the proposals weren’t broad enough in their scope." and "“These ordinances do nothing to address the current runoff,” he said. “It seems to only address these buffer zones".
Buffer zone for rain water removal? Wow, I'm thinking, I just know the City of Norman is gearing up for another land grab. I hold title to some land in Norman, I'll just bet this is going to affect me or some other unfortunate soul who has a title. I wondered how much land was going to be subject to theft, and if no theft was going to occur, how much the city was going to pay to obtain the rights and easements for all the buffer zones that are suddenly required to get rain water out of the city.
The article mentioned that the Norman Chamber of Commerce was opposed to the plan. I went to their site to see their side of the story. Sure enough, the Chamber "strongly opposes the taking of lands without compensation".
Hello. Houston, we have a problem.