After a regulatory settlement over unpermitted dams, the fight over water near Cedar Lake in Canadian County now moves to who can use water from streams that feed the lake. The Oklahoma Water Resources Board on Tuesday approved a dam safety consent order with companies connected to former lawm aker Glenn Coffee and his family. The settlement stemmed from a complaint by Cedar Lake residents that Coffee’s family built several unlicensed dams that they said affect lake levels and domestic water wells.  Coffee and his father, Virgil, own neighboring land through two companies, CF Ranch LC and Coffee Grounds LLC. In March and April, they filed applications for stream permits to take water from an unnamed stream that feeds several Coffee farm ponds and Cedar Lake.  The stream applications kicked off a separate regulatory review process from the dam complaint and resolution.  Western Sportsman Club, the private company that owns Cedar Lake, already has a permit to take water from the stream that dates to 1960. The club was among more than 400 landowners downstream of the Coffee farm ponds who must be notified of the new stream permit applications.  Two of the Coffee water permit applications are upstream of Cedar Lake. OWRB officials said they are still waiting on additional information from Coffee’s representatives before an official public notice goes out about his pending applications for stream surface water. That would start the clock on any protests by other landowners.  Western Sportsman Club’s permit gives it the right to 163 acre-feet of water per year for recreational, fishing and wildlife use. An acre-foot of water is enough to cover a football field with a foot of water, about 326,000 gallons.  Among the outstanding issues is whether the federal government has jurisdiction over so-called blue-line streams that affect Cedar Lake and ponds on Coffee property. The OWRB notified the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers of the dam complaint in December. The federal government has not yet made a determination. A spokesman for the Tulsa district said it doesn’t comment or provide estimated completion dates for jurisdictional determinations. Coffee, speaking publicly about the case for the first time on Tuesday, said he was willing to help solve longer-term water infrastructure needs that could help Cedar Lake residents.  Coffee offered $100,000 in seed money, which Cedar Lake residents would match 3-to-1, to start forming a rural water district. That lengthy and expensive process, if successful, would allow the water district to apply for grants and loans to fund water infrastructure projects.  Coffee said he’d also be willing to help Cedar Lake raise the money for their side of the match. In return, Cedar Lake would stop threatening legal action. The group recently parted ways with the attorney who handled their dam complaint.  “I’m not proposing a formal settlement,” Coffee said at a press conference at his attorney’s office. “I’m just proposing that we’re all going to stand down and not proceed with litigation. We’re willing to set up a fund to proceed in this manner. I’m not asking for any waivers or anything like that. I’m just saying let’s start the process of going in the right direction.”  Sarah Harrington, a member of the Cedar Lake dam committee, said residents were willing to start negotiations but needed additional information from Coffee and his attorney, George Corbyn. Even so, that effort wouldn’t address any of the immediate needs of lake residents regarding their water wells and lower lake levels.  Residents Unhappy With Board Decision  Dozens of Cedar Lake residents attended the OWRB meeting on Tuesday, but they were not recognized to discuss the dam consent order. The board approved the Coffee dam consent order as part of a unanimous vote on its summary disposition agenda, which doesn’t require separate votes.  The meeting was moved from OWRB’s offices to a theater inside the Oklahoma Justice Center near the Capitol to accommodate a larger-than-usual crowd. Scores of Cedar Lake residents attended a previous OWRB meeting in July. Glenn Coffee, left, discusses his family’s dams and water rights near Cedar Lake with his attorney George Corbyn, right, at the Corbyn Law Firm in Oklahoma City on Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026. (Paul Monies/Oklahoma Watch) Mark Sullivan, a spokesman for the Cedar Lake residents, tried to get OWRB Board Vice Chairman Bob Latham to recognize him so he could ask the board to consider the Coffee dam consent order separately. Latham said he didn’t hear Sullivan, leading to a four-minute break in the proceedings, during which disappointed residents asked for clarification about the meeting process and shouted their frustrations at the board.  “I wasn’t even allowed to make the request,” Sullivan said after the meeting. “I was told that, ‘too late, we’ve already voted. We’re moving to the next item.’ And that was it.”  OWRB board members declined to comment after the meeting.  In the week leading up to the meeting, a group of Cedar Lake residents asked to address the board. But they were told they weren’t a party to any business before the board and it doesn’t allow public comment at its meetings, according to an email from Andrew Price, OWRB’s assistant general counsel. Sullivan said he still doesn’t understand how the board could vote on a consent order for dams that are holding back water that would normally flow downstream to Cedar Lake.  “For this board, their vote today about this consent order was a crossroads for them,” Sullivan said. “They had the opportunity to tell all Oklahomans, tell all of us that we matter, that they’re listening to us. Well, clearly we don’t, and they weren’t.”  In a written statement Tuesday, OWRB spokeswoman Darla Whitley said the board regretted reports from audience members about the meeting’s audio quality. She said the agency followed its procedures for a consent order under the Oklahoma Administrative Procedures Act. The Coffee family’s companies were fined $2,500.  A staff presentation on the Coffee dam case said the agency has found no evidence of interference with Cedar Lake’s stream water right. It based that conclusion partly on a review of historic hydrological data more than 15 miles away. The unsigned presentation said lower water levels around the lake could also be due to a reduction in the nearby Rush Springs aquifer.  Cedar Lake residents released a point-by-point refutation of the OWRB presentation last week. They said an independent groundwater hydrologist, Carol Becker of Johnson-Becker Water LLC, reached a different conclusion than OWRB staff.  “Because Dams 5 and 6 capture runoff from almost 40% of the watershed, the decline in lake levels and well yields reported after 2021 corresponds with the period following the construction of Dam 6,” Becker wrote in her report. “With less streamflow reaching Cedar Lake, less water is available to maintain lake levels and recharge the underlying aquifer that supplies water to domestic wells.”  State law gives dam owners a process to bring unlicensed dams into compliance if an investigation shows the dams fall under state jurisdiction. Whitley said OWRB has 12 active enforcement orders and 39 dams subject to warning letters or notices of violation that could become active enforcement orders if the owners fail to respond.  “The consent order approved by the OWRB today is an agreement between the dam owner and the OWRB, and it relates strictly to the dam owner’s responsibilities,” OWRB’s Whitley said in the agency’s statement. “The dam owner agreed to the terms of the order, including established deadlines and a penalty for failing to obtain a construction permit from the OWRB and failing to bring the dams into regulatory compliance.”  Paul Monies has been a reporter with Oklahoma Watch since 2017 and covers state agencies and public health. Contact him at (571) 319-3289 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @pmonies.  The post Cedar Lake Water Fight Deepens After State Approves Dam Settlement appeared first on Oklahoma Watch. ...read more read less