Sallisaw City Commissioners will review four alternatives to increase the city’s water supply, and perhaps vote on the one they prefer at their September meeting.

City officials heard a report on the costs of an increased or new water supply Tuesday from Doug Lantz of Tetra-Tech, an engineering consulting firm. The costs ranged from $17.9 million to $25 million.

City Manager Bill Baker said after the presentation that the project will be hard to fund, but is needed. Funding choices include asking city residents to continue a half-cent sales tax and increasing utility costs. A half-cent sales tax for improvements at Carl Albert State College’s Sallisaw campus is expected to be retired in December, and city commissioners must decide by October if they will ask city voters to continue the tax for water improvements. The commissioners must ask for the sales tax vote 60 days before the proposed election, which Baker hopes will be in December.

Still, Baker said, a half-cent sales tax would not pay for the new water supply.

“Funding is a major challenge,” Baker said, adding the half-cent sales tax, if approved, would generate $8 million to $9 million. “The sales tax would not be enough, but we are still looking at locking up that tax for 30 years.”

The alternatives that city commissioners will be considering are: a new lake on the creek north of Brushy Lake, the city’s current water supply, at a cost of $25 million; a smaller lake north of Brushy Lake at a cost of $17.9 million; enlargement of Brushy Lake at a cost of $25 million; and buying water from the Sequoyah County Water Association (SCWA) on a negotiated contract.

Baker said the SCWA is installing a 24-inch water line from Lake Tenkiller to Sallisaw, and needs to increase the number of water buyers for the project.

Baker said Brett Peters of Hawkins-Weir Engineering of Van Buren, Ark., will brief the city commissioners about the lake plans at the city’s August meeting. SCWA representatives will brief the commissioners on buying water.

The city commissioners are considering new lakes and enlarging Brushy Lake because the watershed lakes will be rehabilitated in the next few years to improve their ability to curtail flooding. The Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) is planning the rehabilitations. Bill Porter, NRCS program manager with the watershed program, said NRCS has no deadline, and the city has time to make a decision on what water project to undertake.

Baker said the city doesn’t need the additional water at the present time, but will need it for the future. Engineers have determined the city will need about 2 million gallons more a day in the future, for a 50-year time period. An increased water supply will also be an attraction to any new businesses or manufacturers, which may want to be in Sallisaw.

Storage is the problem, Baker said.

Baker said, “We have a big watershed and lots of water. We don’t have enough storage.”