Stockton Lake initiative to shore up SWMO water supply, officials say

An initiative that officials say has been in the works for two decades has the go-ahead to supply more drinking water to southwest Missouri.

Southwest Missouri Water, an organization made up of the Southwest Missouri Joint Municipal Water Utility Commission and the Tri-State Water Resource Coalition, announced in a Friday news release that the federal Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army signed a record of decision to reallocate storage space in Stockton Lake for drinking and industrial water supplies. The record of decision was signed Jan. 18.

"In partnership with the Army Corps of Engineers and Missouri Department of Natural Resources, these entities have been working for 20 years to secure water for the future of southwest Missouri. The Army’s signing of the record of decision is a major step toward that goal," SWMO Water officials said in the release. "In addition to securing water for southwest Missouri’s future, this project will be a long-term economic driver. In the near term alone, it will inject close to a billion dollars and thousands of jobs into the Missouri economy as the water distribution network is completed."

The release pointed to the federal Water Resources Development Act of 2024 that went into effect on Jan. 5, with SWMO Water officials thanking a handful of Republican legislators from Missouri: U.S. Reps. Eric Burlison, Mark Alford and Sam Graves, chair of the Transportation & Infrastructure Committee, as well as Sen. Eric Schmitt.

"This is a big win for southwest Missouri, and I am very proud that we were able to deliver," Burlison said in the release.

SWMO Water Executive Director Roddy Rogers said via email that next steps include the negotiation and execution of a contract between the Southwest Missouri Joint Municipal Water Utility Commission and the Corps of Engineers for water storage, as well as negotiation of contracts between the commission and member entities.

"Once the contracts are in place, we will begin to make payment for the storage," Rogers said. "We are also performing corridor studies to begin to define the most preferred route within a one-mile corridor."

The board of City Utilities of Springfield in late 2023 approved a memorandum of understanding between CU and the Southwest Missouri Joint Water Utility Commission to add more water to the utility's supply from Stockton Lake, according to past reporting.