The Oklahoma Water Resources Board on Tuesday approved a $2,500 settlement with companies tied to former state lawmaker Glenn Coffee over unlicensed dams near Cedar Lake in Canadian County, according to a report from Oklahoma Watch. The consent order resolves a complaint from lake residents who said the Coffee family constructed several dams without permits, affecting water levels in the lake and nearby domestic wells. But the regulatory fight now shifts to a separate battle: who holds the rights to take water from streams feeding Cedar Lake, where Coffee and his father Virgil have filed new applications through their companies C&F Ranch LC and Coffee Grounds LLC.
Coffee's companies applied in March and April for permits to draw water from an unnamed stream that flows through several farm ponds on Coffee property before reaching Cedar Lake, the report says. Western Sportsman Club, the private entity that owns Cedar Lake, already holds a 1960 permit allowing it to take 163 acre-feet of water annually from the same stream—roughly 53 million gallons—for recreational, fishing, and wildlife purposes. Two of Coffee's pending applications sit upstream of the lake, and more than 400 downstream landowners must be notified before the state issues formal public notice. The board is still waiting on additional details from Coffee's representatives before starting the clock on potential protests from other property owners, officials said.
Coffee, speaking publicly about the dispute for the first time on Tuesday, proposed $100,000 in seed funding that Cedar Lake residents would match at a 3-to-1 ratio to form a rural water district. That process, if successful, would let the district seek grants and loans for water infrastructure projects. "I'm not proposing a formal settlement," Coffee said at a press conference. "I'm just proposing that we're all going to stand down and not proceed with litigation." Sarah Harrington, a member of the Cedar Lake dam committee, said residents were open to talks but needed more information from Coffee and his attorney, George Corbyn. She noted the proposal wouldn't address immediate concerns about wells and lake levels. An independent hydrologist hired by residents, Carol Becker of Johnson-Becker Water LLC, concluded that "the decline in lake levels and well yields reported after 2021 corresponds with the period following the construction of Dam 6," which captures runoff from nearly 40% of the watershed.
Dozens of Cedar Lake residents attended Tuesday's board meeting but weren't allowed to speak about the dam consent order, which passed on a unanimous summary disposition vote that doesn't require separate consideration. Mark Sullivan, a spokesman for the residents, said he tried to ask the board to vote on the Coffee settlement separately but wasn't recognized before the vote concluded. Board members declined to comment after the meeting, and an OWRB staff presentation said the agency found no evidence of interference with Cedar Lake's stream water rights, basing that finding partly on hydrological data from more than 15 miles away. The agency also suggested lower water levels could stem from a reduction in the nearby Rush Springs aquifer. Cedar Lake residents released a point-by-point rebuttal last week, and the question of whether the federal government has authority over the streams remains unresolved—the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has yet to issue a jurisdictional determination after being notified of the dam complaint in December.