Moore's Stop - All Things Moore

Mighty Fine H2O - A Deep Dive into Moore's Water Department

Rob

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0:00 | 33:17

On this episode of Moore's Stop, Mayor Mark and Rob are joined by Veolia Water Project Manager, Robert Pistole, who takes us "down the well" with a enlightening look at how Moore manages its water.

SPEAKER_02

Welcome to episode four of Moore's Stop. I'm here with Mayor Mark Ham. Lots of fun things going on around Moore this time of the year as we turn the corner and head for summer.

SPEAKER_00

That's true. Summer is here. By the time this is out, school will be out and the swimming pools will be open and kids are going to be out having a blast.

SPEAKER_02

Splash pads are already open. The uh aquatic center open. I mean, all sorts of fun things going on. We've got summer beats, uh, the we've got national night out. We've got, of course, the big 250th year celebration, celebration in the heartland, fishing derby, all sorts of things going on that that um you can follow on the City of Moore's website. All those events are listed there. And a pitchformoremonthly.com, our summer events guide will be on newsstands in June. So by the time this comes out, you can go pick up a hard copy of that or go to our website and see all those things listed in one place. And uh, but we don't want to get sidetracked. Summer's coming and we're gonna have fun. But um, I was talking to somebody the other day and actually went out and shot drone video of a place in Moore that has a really, really interesting history that I didn't know about. But you and I were talking, it's it's known as Cleveland Heights, and long time Moore residents are gonna recognize that phrase, Cleveland Heights, and they're gonna know exactly what we're talking about. That's there's an interesting history about that piece of land and what's going on with it.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, Cleveland Heights uh is a uh quarter section of land, about 160 acres, that sits in the northeast part of our city. It's bordered by North Bryant, Northeast Twelfth, and North Sunny Lane. And back in the 50s, there were some people, some developers that bought it and had it platted through the city. So it there is a plat and it has all the homes where they're gonna be in the streets. And then they sold lots at the state fair. Uh and people bought those lots and they cut some roads in out at Cleveland Heights, they put in power poles and even put in some uh sewer lines. But for some reason it was never developed, and I don't know why. I think ultimately there were four, maybe five homes that were built out there, and so it's just kind of sat as an empty field for all of these years. And part of the reason is why somebody bought the uh uh a lot in the 50s, and the home was never built, and then that person passed away, and then it was given uh through their uh will to their uh siblings or to their children, and so now you have one lot that might have 10, 12, or 13 owners, and those people have moved all over the country and they don't even know they own this piece of land. Uh so it made it really difficult for any single developer to come in there and want to buy this property because they're gonna have to track down all of these people and try to buy this lot from them. So this is when the city stepped in uh several years ago, and we developed the Urban Renewal Authority, and that uh gave us an avenue to go in and begin to acquire some of this property. So we did declare that area a blighted area, uh, and we began to find these individuals that owned those pieces of property, and then we began to negotiate and to buy those properties, and then those properties where we could not find owners, it has to be condemned and has to go through a whole legal process. And so we've done that and we're down to the last four or five pieces of property.

SPEAKER_02

All right, so I want to make sure I understand this because it sounds like a great mystery. Um, this section of land known as Cleveland Heights, um sold by developers plots uh back in the 50s, the and now the the owners are children of children of children who have some have moved off, you don't know where they are, so developers are going, no, we can't do anything with that because it's too much trouble. The city has gone through the trouble of tracking down everybody, and the city has is pulling together everything that is needed for Cleveland Heights to move forward with some kind of development, and you're down to the last couple of plots, am I right? That's what I'm hearing you say? Yes. Okay, so my question then is um and and there may not be a clear answer to this yet, is what do you have planned? What what's gonna happen with Cleveland Heights once these last few pieces of the puzzle fall into place?

SPEAKER_00

And that is still to be determined. Uh the city is exploring all kinds of options and possibilities. Um it's going to probably be a residential, maybe a mix of business. But what is this going to look like in the grand scheme? I can't tell you exactly because I'm just not sure. I do know that we have worked with the University of Oklahoma to help us uh develop and have some ideas so we can have visuals of what would really fit within this home, this addition. Would it be homes for new uh new families? Would it could it be homes for senior adults? Uh could it be homes for just a mixture of all of that? And it could really become a gathering space.

SPEAKER_02

But it's going to be some sort of residential area. Is that what I'm hearing?

SPEAKER_00

Yes, yes, it will be resident. That's primarily what we have over in the northeast part of town. We're not looking to develop a lot of businesses out there. Now, within that residential, there could be some businesses that could support that neighborhood as well as those surrounding neighborhoods. Okay.

SPEAKER_02

Well, it sounds like, I mean, again, for folks that that don't really track those kind of things or drive by out there, um, it it might come as a bit of, oh, hey, I didn't know that was going on, but it sounds like a really good project.

SPEAKER_00

It is, and it's just a valuable piece of real estate that has been untouched for years. And uh as we run out of space to develop and more, it's become even more valuable, finally to the point where the city said, we need to do something about this. So I just encourage residents to and of our community to stay tuned and to pay attention because things will be happening out there, hopefully, in the near future.

SPEAKER_02

And as always, the mayor, the city council, the folks at City Hall, they love to hear from the community your thoughts on these kinds of things.

SPEAKER_00

We do, and all of our contact information can be found at citymoor.com under the government tab.

SPEAKER_02

That's great. Okay, we're gonna take a little bit of a break, and then we're gonna be back with Robert Pistol, who's going to just share some fascinating information about Moore's water. Grab your swimwear and head over to the Station Aquatics Center for the Daddy and Daughter Party at the pool on Friday, June 19th. A date night for daughters to be escorted by any adult figure. Featuring swimming, dancing, light snacks, balloon animals, and more. 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. For more information, call the station at 405-793-5090. Hey, welcome back, folks. We're in our second segment where we bring in a guest from the surrounding community. Uh Mayor Mark, uh, you brought someone that is, I think, going to be chopped full of really, really great information and you know, slake our thirst, as it were, with the questions you have lined up.

SPEAKER_00

Uh very good, and I like your introduction to that. So, thirst is the key word. We're gonna visit in just a minute or two with Robert Pistol, uh, and he works for Veolia Water. That's who the City of Moore contracts with to provide uh our sanitary sewer as well as some of our drinking water. And Robert's gonna dive a little bit more into where we get our water. Do we buy it from Oklahoma City? Do we get it from water wells uh and uh so forth? So uh Robert, won't you just quickly say hello and introduce yourself?

SPEAKER_01

Thank you, Mayor. Um again, I'm Robert Pisteau. I've been uh the project manager for the city of Moore for about 35 years now. All right. Uh 35 years, and I I don't know where it all went. It's been it's been a fun ride.

SPEAKER_00

Well, you uh again are not a newcomer to Moore municipal government and a 35-year employee of the city and with the oldia is uh something to be proud of, and so we applaud that.

SPEAKER_02

By the way, I I just want to say I've lived in a number of places over the course of my life, and there are some of those places where just drinking water from the tap ain't fun. Yeah, more is not one of those places. Our water from the tap is really it's pretty good.

SPEAKER_00

It is. Yeah. So, Robert, uh let me just let's just dive into this. So, can you just give us a quick overview of exactly what does Veolia do for the city of Moore? And just kind of uh think about how do you manage both our drinking water and our waste water systems?

SPEAKER_01

Well, uh, well, first of all, our drinking water comes from uh 42 separate water wells throughout the city. We have seven tie-ins with the city of Oklahoma City. Um we also have a treatment plant that's 9.5 million gallons, and that's on the wastewater side. Sorry. The wastewater side has a 9.5 uh MGD, which is million gallons per day. And then we also have seven lift stations that pump throughout the city.

SPEAKER_00

I didn't realize we have 42 wells. I thought it was 23 or 24. Are we continuing to drill new ones?

SPEAKER_01

No, no, we're not continuing to drill new ones. We've um have all the raw water rights that we can are eligible for in the city of Moore. Okay. Um out of the 42 wells, 28 are active wells right now that we're operating on a daily mold, basically. And then we have 10 that's on standby, and there's a few that we just uh the water quality on them is just terrible, so we just had to shut them down.

SPEAKER_00

And where does that I know the water comes from the ground, but what aquifer does this water control?

SPEAKER_01

It's the garber wellington aquifer. Most of our wells are about a thousand foot deep, so it's a very deep water aquifer.

SPEAKER_00

That is. And how how dependent is the city on these water wells? Because you said we have seven tie-ins from Oklahoma City. Just explain real quick, what do you mean as a tie-in?

SPEAKER_01

Our water wells can only produce um the best case scenario, about 7.2 million gallons a day. And um we're above that. Yeah, yeah. So, and you know, we average about five million gallons a day with our water wells. So we have to um actually purchase water from Oakham City, and we have several tie-ins throughout the city uh mainly to uh hydraulically model the water so it's mixed properly. Uh you don't want you don't want um everything coming in at say um 12th and eastern, so to speak, because then uh you get some taste complaints in. You're you're gonna really notice the heavy bleach. I think Mark said something about traveling uh around and you go to different cities and you can smell the chlorine and taste it and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00

So so basically we use Oklahoma City to help supplement our demand or supplement, we actually have to have it. We have to have it, absolutely. To supply all the water for all of the needs throughout our city. In Oklahoma City, does that come from Lake Stanley Draper?

SPEAKER_01

Yes, yes, it comes from Lake Stanley Draper. Actually, it comes from Lake Otoka. Okay. The city of Oklahoma City actually pumps the water from Lake Otoka to Draper. Draper is basically a lake, it's a storage lake from Lake Otoka. All right.

SPEAKER_00

And when we get the well ground the water out of the ground, do we have to do anything to it? Clean it, process it, treat it, or does it go straight into the it goes straight into there?

SPEAKER_01

We do disinfect it. Yeah, we have add a little bleach, so to speak. It's sodium hyperchloric, which is a stronger bleach, but we uh inject bleach to it, and um it's it's very good um quality water. That's great.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that's great. And I could go into more questions, but it maybe get a little boring for people, but it's uh it is interesting. So let me ask you another one. Uh, we kind of talked about our drinking water and where it comes from and what you how we have to treat it, and as well as we we buy th water from Oakland City. But every now and then uh I will get in the mail as well as other residents a a notice about some of the arsenic levels in our water. Yeah. Now, what does that mean? And when a citizen gets that in the in their mail, what is that telling them and is there anything to be concerned about?

SPEAKER_01

We talked a little bit earlier about how many different locations. One water well is a very small percentage of our daily usage, okay? Arsenic is a bad thing, but it's naturally occurring. It's a heavy metal.

SPEAKER_00

Uh so it's not necessarily a pollutant, it's not something that that we are causing that's just uh it's naturally uh there.

SPEAKER_01

There. It's naturally there. Um they're very, very low amounts. In the early 2000s, um the EPA chased a speed limit, so to speak. They lowered the arsenic level to a 10 running average. Uh prior to that, it was 50 parts per billion, which is really small.

SPEAKER_00

Um so they lowered the level to 10. So if we are if we as you monitor our wells throughout the city, if one of those shows something above 10, yeah, then the city is required to send notice out to the users. And in no way, if that water were unsafe, would we distribute it? Do we shut that well down until we get the levels to where they need to be?

SPEAKER_01

Generally, what happens, we do immediately shut it down. Uh there's no cause for, oh no, the sky has fallen because it's it's it's such a low detection limit. Yeah. It's almost non-detectable. But I mean it's it's for everyone's safety. Right. It's for everyone's safety. So we do shut it down. Um you don't really have to do anything. Uh just let the well recharge the water officer always moving, and it seems to just think it's going downstream. Yeah. We turn it off and the the arsenic just travels downstream. Okay. And then we can turn it back on later and test it. We always test it uh for at least two or three weeks to see, make sure we're not going to get ahead of it again.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. And uh so don't test it just once, we're gonna test it super. Several times. Several times before we turn that well back on.

SPEAKER_02

So I just want to make sure I'm tracking here, because I'm the idiot in the room, as usual. So dumb it down for me, or let me say it to you, and you can tell me if I'm tracking correctly. Aquifers are not this static bit of water 1,000 feet down, the one you were talking about that we tap into. It's a moving body of water underground. And so when we get an arsenic reason, which you said was how much per million or billion? It's 10 parts per billion. 10 points per billion, which sounds really, really low, yeah, but that's enough to trigger the hey, there's a problem here. So you shut it down, and that pocket of water that has the arsenic in it moves on. It's not we're not drawing from a static body of water, we're drawing from a changing body of water. Is that right?

SPEAKER_01

That's correct. Okay, yeah, that helps me understand it. And generally speaking, that 10 parts per per billion from that one water well that we may have a from time to time have a hit on. And it generally it's two or three years, we'll that kind of comes up. I don't know why, but it it does.

SPEAKER_00

Well, look, let me we're running quick low on time. So let me run just a couple of other questions and things that have always piqued my interest. So you kind of answered some of the biggest challenges of of providing clean drinking water, but the city has a pretty good handle on that. But what about down the road? What about 10, 15, 20 years from now as our city continues to grow with businesses and homes? How is Violia helping the city prepare to meet that demand?

SPEAKER_01

Well, of course, what we really can it's managing your existing system. Uh, we can help with the water losses. Just recently we recalculated the water losses in 2024 to 2025, and there's a uh 15% improvement there. And what that amounts to is uh better water lines. We're going through, we're putting new water lines in, new services, getting those out. So that's so it's more of a to conserve our water so our because we don't have a lot of choices and more. Right. Uh we're we're landlocked, right? And we have all the water rights that we and that's why we have 42 wells, but only 28, because we want to keep the water rights.

SPEAKER_00

So we're just that kind of goes back to infrastructure and just replacing aging infrastructure and leaky pipes, making sure that those are sound and not we're not losing water. Uh we're keeping all that's being cleaned and processed. That's what you guys help us do. Yeah. All right, fantastic. Tell me just a real quick about something nobody wants to talk about, and that's when you you uh your wastewater. You know, whether you're taking a shower or you have to use the restroom, and then you push the lever, and the citizen is done with at that point. Where does it go and what happens to it ultimately?

SPEAKER_01

The the wastewater, once it goes from your house, it enters what we refer to as a collector line. There's several collector lines throughout the city, and that's usually right behind your houses. And then from the collector lines, it will go to a what they refer to as a trunk line. And then once it goes through a trunk line, a trunk line will be catching neighborhoods as it comes through there. And then it goes into what we refer to a a main, and then the the main trunk, so to speak. And depending on where you're at in Moore, we have seven different lift stations, so it literally will gravitate all throughout Moore.

SPEAKER_00

But it ultimately all goes to the waste treatment center. Wherever you live in Moore, the wastewater is going to our treatment facility that's located down on uh I-34th and I-35.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Uh so yeah, it it it all travels down to the wastewater treatment plant. So a fun fact is that if you're on the far northeast side of town, it takes two days. Whoa, two days before it actually reaches there. I didn't know that. Yeah, very surprised. Yeah, because we've got over 300 miles of sewer mains, and it can only travel so fast, and it it's very important for your lines to not go too fast or too slow.

SPEAKER_00

Years ago, I went down and toured the sewer plant, and it's really an amazing facility, and you can be standing right by it and not know that you're standing by a water sewage plant because the odor uh is uh not there. Now, there are some days in the city when we have heavy rainfalls and some of the waste water from storm runoff has to be stored, but for the most part it's all inside of a facility, and before that air is put back into the atmosphere, it's filtered to help uh uh reduce the odor. So once that water is treated, how clean is it, and then where do we send it?

SPEAKER_01

So we can remove about what we refer to our inorganics and organics 90% of all of the organics fairly easily. And then the next 10% is um a little more difficult. A little more difficult, but it literally takes about 24 hours to treat wastewater, and we take all of the I I once had a Boy Scout says, I recognize where the poo-poo goes because we actually filter that out and we put some chemicals with it called polymer, and we take that to the landfill. We can filter all the solids out of it. And then we have to actually treat biologically the pee pee, so to speak. He wanted to know how that worked. I thought that was very interesting. Oh, it is. I thought that was very interesting. That young man wanted to know how that.

SPEAKER_00

So when the water, where does it go after it's been treated? And I assume it has to be uh tested and and there's standards before it can be released back into the environment. But where do we release it? Where does it go?

SPEAKER_01

So we do have a permit with um the EPA and DEQ. And once it's treated to the safe levels, we actually pump it to the river. It actually travels along Indian Hills Road about five miles to the South Canadian River.

SPEAKER_00

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

And some of that water is reused to make power. You you've got a uh McLean power plant, O. Genie has a power plant over at Newcastle. They actually use our effluent water to cool the towers down.

SPEAKER_00

Okay.

SPEAKER_02

So when we look over to the uh southwest and see that white steam rising from the power plant, that's really water that has come from us.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, that's our effluent water. When you see the steam there, that's our effluent water cooling the towers for to generate electricity.

SPEAKER_00

So we clean the water to get it to the standard where it can be released, but we're also uh selling that water to this treatment plant, or there we just have an agreement where they will take it?

SPEAKER_01

No, we do sell it. Okay. It's it's it's not much, but it's it's it's something. Yeah. But that's not the point. The point is the reuse of it.

SPEAKER_00

Sure. Yeah, that's that's the point. Well, is there anything before we wrap this up that you want to tell us uh about the Violia? And I know they don't just work here in Moore, Oklahoma, they're uh international company, is that right?

SPEAKER_01

That that's correct, it's a very large company. Last numbers I've seen worldwide, it's not it's international, uh had 450,000 employees worldwide. Wow, it's a very large company. But having said that, we're uh we're a small company right here in Moore, Oklahoma, that is uh definitely have a good partner relationship with private public partnership with you. And um I I think it works. I'm a hometown boy here in Moore, and I'm very proud of Moore. I feel Moore is very fortunate to have a large company like that supporting us. I really do.

SPEAKER_00

I I agree. Years ago, the city did take care of its own uh wastewater and tried to uh and did a good job, I'm sure. But just looking at the numbers, you can find a company like Violi, and I'm sure there's others, that that's what they do. Yeah, and they know how to do it, and they can do it a lot more efficient uh than what we can because they are such an international company and they can combine all the resources to ensuring that our water is clean to drink and that our wastewater is safe to put back into the environment because it's going to be reused again.

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00

Well, hey, thank you so much for taking some time to stop and say hello and talk to us about water. It's something that if we're not here, then we wouldn't be here. Uh and the uh train that ran up and down the track, you know, about every 20 miles they would stop to fill the steam engine back up with water. And that's how most of these towns were established up and down the uh uh BNSF rail line. So water is vital and it's important, and I appreciate all that you and your team do at our treatment facility.

SPEAKER_02

Well, thank you.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, uh Robert also thanks from me. Um it's been fun talking to you over the years and having you explain some of these things to me. So it's great to hear it again. And we're gonna take a little break, and we will be right back with some of your questions for Mayor Mark. Don't miss the biggest event of the summer, July 4th at Buck Thomas Park. It's the City of Moore's celebration in the heartland, featuring one of Oklahoma's largest fireworks shows, along with food trucks, vendors, live music, and events throughout the day. 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. at Buck Thomas Park. Fireworks begin around 9.45 p.m. Visit Cityofmoore.com for more information. Hey, welcome back to our final segment. It's time to take your questions for Mayor Mark. Uh Mayor Mark, I it sounds to me like you've got a pretty good question today.

SPEAKER_00

We do. And today's question or this month's question is from Kim Sober. And she is asking, why does Moore not have public storm shelters?

SPEAKER_02

That always comes up, especially in severe weather season. People are like, why don't you have somewhere I can go and be safe?

SPEAKER_00

Yes, that is a common question, and it it kind of makes sense when uh just from running it through your mind. But if you really think about it, we couldn't build a storm shelter big enough for 65,000 people. Of course, you'd never build one that big, but even if you put them throughout the city, the problem would be how are you going to regulate how many people are going to be in that shelter, who's going to decide when it's full and when the door's closed and you have people outside, what's going to happen. So the safest thing that is recommended by the National Weather Service and other our own city emergency management department game and kids is just a shelter in place.

SPEAKER_02

Obviously, it would be insane to build a shelter for 65,000 people. I had talked to a few folks that were like city planners that said it's dangerous to even think about building various shelters throughout the city for 250,500, a thousand people, even what we would consider to be that might be a reasonable number for a shelter, that can cause all sorts of problems as well.

SPEAKER_00

It can. And if you just think about severe weather and tornadoes, they're they happen pretty quickly. Now, we do have good forecasting, and you can sometimes see the tornado that's forming and moving this direction, but often you just have moments' notice. And so if you're gonna wait to the last moment, get in your car, you might find yourself out in the open versus being in your home. You know, the weather people on TV always tell us go to the center of your home, uh, whether it be a bathroom or a closet and put things over, put on a helmet. And that's just gonna be the safest place that anyone can go is shelter in place instead of trying to get out in all of the traffic and then the congestion, if you have thousands or let's say even hundreds of people trying to get somewhere at once, it's gonna create problems.

SPEAKER_02

And I moved to Oklahoma in 1996, so I've been here for 30 years. One of the very first things I learned was one of the worst places you can be in the a tornado is in your car.

SPEAKER_00

That's just asking for trouble. It is, and in our 1999 F-5 tornado, we had some people that sought shelter under uh an overpass, and some of them passed away just because of the violent nature of the storm and the uh the flow of air that's going through there. Um it's just better to be inside of a structure. It's great to be in a shelter, it's better to be underground, uh, but it's good to be inside of a home and take the precautions that we've all heard about over the years of going to the center of your house, going to a bathroom, uh, away from exterior walls, putting uh blankets, pillows, what those kinds of things over yourself in the event that something horrific happens.

SPEAKER_02

And obviously, a really smart thing to do for a homeowner would be there are lots of storm shelter businesses in our area that are very experienced, very good at what they do. Um, and I'm sure there are deals and things out there that can be made, but that's that would be a pretty wise home investment, would be a storm shelter.

SPEAKER_00

Most definitely. I have one in my house and it was added in after the 2013 uh tornado. And the the truth is a lot of the new homes that are built in our community are built with storm shelters. It's just kind of the uh something that people have come to expect when they're looking for a home here in this part of the country is do we have a storm shelter? So a lot of builders and new homes are just built with uh shelters uh in the home. But if not, you can always have one added for various prices. I don't know what they uh they are running now. But yes, there are a lot of great companies out there that would be happy to help.

SPEAKER_02

And of course, more public schools now has a storm shelter located at every school, so parents don't have to worry about I've got to get over the school and get my child and get them home. They will be able to shelter in place.

SPEAKER_00

Right. Every uh more public school, uh uh elementary school, uh, our junior highs or high schools have um uh emergency rooms, uh above-ground shelters for their students and for the staff and the faculty at all the schools. That was a bond issue a number of years ago that passed overwhelmingly, and more public schools was able to ensure that every school in more in their district has a storm shelter.

SPEAKER_02

Always great to talk about severe weather and safety this time of the year. That's really important. And um, another, I think, really great fun episode. Uh, we're starting to maybe get in a little bit of a glue here.

SPEAKER_00

I hope so, and I just want to thank Kim for uh submitting her question. And just if you have a question you'd like for us to answer, just go to uh uh my city my webpage, uh either personal page or Markham for Mayer page, and just post it on there and we'll get to those questions.

SPEAKER_02

And don't forget, uh, you'll find a lot of answers to so many different topics at cityofmore.com. Uh and you'll also want to follow the City of Moore social media on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Always posting things about events going on, opportunities, lots of information out there for you. And so make sure you check that out and enjoy the month of June. We will see you again in July as we gear up for celebration in the heartland. 250 years of America and 100 plus years of war.

SPEAKER_00

That's right. It's gonna be a firework display like one more has never seen. I promise you, it will uh you will be uh amazed. So come on out, and there we are gonna have some drones, and then there's just the fireworks this year are gonna be out of this world. And in the meantime, enjoy June, and we will see you next month. All right, thanks everybody, have a great month.