Report Title: Ground water in Creek County, Oklahoma
Report Number: OFR 37-2
Author: R.C. Cady
Abstract
Creek County has been designated as a problem area by the Land Use
Planning Section of the Resettlement Administration. Some of the
earliest oil fields to brought into production were situated in and
near this county, and new fields have been opened from time to time
during the ensuing years. The production of the newer fields, however,
has not kept pace with the exhaustion of the older fields, and the
county now presents an excellent picture of the problems involved in
adjusting a population to lands that are nearly depleted of their
mineral wealth. Values of land have been greatly depressed; tax
collection is far in arrears; tenancy is widespread; and in addition
more people will apparently be forced to depend on the income from
agriculture than the land seems capable of supporting. The county as a
whole is at best indifferently suitable for general farming. The Land
Use planning Section proposes to study the present and seemingly
immanent maladjustments of population to the resources of the land,
and make recommendations for their correction.
The writer was detailed to the Land Use Planning Section of Region
VIII for the purposes of making studies of ground water problems in
the region. In Creek County two investigations were made. In
September, 1936, the writer spent about ten days investigating the
availability of ground water for the irrigation of garden crops during
drouths. If it proved feasible to do this generally throughout the
county, the Land Use Planning Section might be able to encourage this
practice. The second investigation made by the writer was in regard to
the extent to which ground water supplies have been damaged by oil
well brines. He was in county for four days late in January 1937, and
again in March, 1937. During part of the second field trip he was
accompanied by R.M. Dixon, sanitary engineer of the Water Utilization
Unit of the Resettlement Administration.
(available as photostat copy only)
http://ok.water.usgs.gov/abstracts/ofr37-2.html
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Last modified: Thu May 20 13:20:27 1999