City Of Bartlesville To Reevaluate Drought Plan, Reinstate Water Resource Committee

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The City of Bartlesville is taking a closer look at its drought contingency plan by reinstating its water resource committee.

Bartlesville city council decided at its most recent meeting that it needed to reevaluate the drought contingency plan, and placed a temporary hold on the Water Shortage Ordinance, keeping Bartlesville from entering stage 2 of water restrictions for now.

The Water Resources Committee will be starting back up after pushing pause back in 2019.

The committee originally formed around 2001 and 2002 in response to a major drought the city was dealing with.

The committee now will be tasked with looking at the drought contingency plan that was established more than 20 years ago and deciding if there are any improvements that can be made.

"We wanted to share some of our experiences, at least staff experiences, with the effectiveness and certain provisions of it. But again just to get a more diverse group to look at it, and to provide their experiences with that plan. And then ultimately if they decide to make recommendations or changes, they will do so," said Terry Lauritsen, Bartlesville Director of Water Utilities.

Lauritsen does expect the committee to make some kind of changes to the city's drought contingency plan and for the committee to continue to meet even if it makes changes to that plan.