Regulatory compliance
Were the dams properly authorized, inspected and maintained?
Verified Independent public record · Hinton, Oklahoma
What is changing
Cedar Lake?
A source-traceable examination of Cedar Lake's low water levels, the regulatory status of six Coffee-affiliated dams, and the competing hydrologic explanations.
i Evidence coordination and public information—not legal advice or professional engineering certification.
CONCEPTUAL WATERSHED
Cedar LakeOK11073
Dam 5OK30692
Dam 6OK30686
39%of watershed area claimed to be intercepted by Dams 5 & 6Reported
Diagram is explanatory only. It does not assert verified coordinates or watershed boundaries.
PROJECT STATE ACTIVE MULTI-AGENCY RECORDS REVIEWReported OWRB Inquiry 3090 production reviewed · other delivery, receipt, and processing states remain open
KNOWN STRUCTURES7 verified IDsCedar Lake + Coffee Dams 1 through 6
OPEN QUESTION2 records to reconcileDam 4/5 coordinates and ownership representations
ANALYTICAL TARGETΔ inflow in acre-feetWith vs. without Dams 5 & 6
THE CENTRAL QUESTION
Two questions.
One lake.
The evidence supports a real regulatory dispute. It does not yet provide an independently reproducible answer to how much the upstream dams changed Cedar Lake's inflow.
Hydrologic causation
How many acre-feet would have reached Cedar Lake without Dams 5 and 6?
DisputedCOMPETING EXPLANATIONS
The claims do not yet reconcile.
OWRB POSITIONReported
“No evidence” the Coffee dams caused the lake or well decline.
Reporting says the agency emphasizes drought, evaporation, limited natural inflow, discontinued supplemental groundwater use and declining groundwater.
VS
JOHNSON-BECKER POSITIONReported
Dams 5 and 6 are the primary cause because they intercept two principal tributaries.
The published StreamStats analysis assigns 141.4 acres to Dam 5 and 188.8 acres to Dam 6—roughly 330 acres, or about 39% of the 853-acre watershed. It reports 3.5 AF and 71.2 AF of normal storage, respectively.
Independent drainage-area cross-check
The applicant-side February 2026 H&H report models about 201 acres draining to Dam 6; Johnson-Becker reports 188.8 acres. The close figures strengthen the drainage-area estimate, but do not by themselves quantify lost Cedar Lake inflow.
What would resolve causation
A calibrated water balance comparing wet, normal and drought conditions with and without Dams 5 and 6.
STRUCTURE REGISTER
Seven structures.
Seven verified IDs.
Filter by evidence status. A verified identifier does not establish ownership, condition or causation.
STRUCTUREOFFICIAL IDSTATUSKNOWN RECORD
Cedar Lake Dam
OK11073Verified≈1,130 acre-feet at normal poolCoffee Dam 1
OK30688Verified40 ft · 216 AF max · fair (OWRB, Sept. 2025)Coffee Dam 2
OK30689Verified29 ft · 205.1 AF max · poor (OWRB, Sept. 2025)Coffee Dam 3
OK30690Verified27 ft · 89 AF max · fair (OWRB, Sept. 2025)Coffee Dam 4
OK30691Verified18 ft · 64.1 AF max · poor (OWRB, Sept. 2025)Coffee Dam 5
OK30692VerifiedJurisdictional · poor · directly upstream of Cedar LakeCoffee Dam 6
OK30686Verified33 ft · 119 AF max · fair (OWRB, June 2025)CONTEXT, NOT CONCLUSION
Drought is material.
It is not the entire analysis.
19.18 inches
West Central precipitation over the reported 12-month period
68%
of normal precipitation
9.22 inches
below normal
9th
driest comparable period since 1921
~655 AF
less gross precipitation across the full 853-acre watershed
~254 AF
less gross precipitation across the claimed 330-acre Dam 5/6 subbasins
CHRONOLOGY
The record over time.
Dates marked reported await direct confirmation from the underlying primary files.
OWRB's published inventory lists Cedar Lake Dam completed in 1959 and the owner as Western Sportsman Club.
VerifiedA gypsum-related subsurface event reportedly drained the lake rapidly.
ReportedSupplemental groundwater pumping reportedly ceased.
ReportedCoffee Dam 5 reportedly completed.
ReportedCoffee Dam 6 reportedly completed; Cedar Lake Dam breach also reported.
ReportedAnonymous complaint prompts OWRB review of an upstream dam.
ReportedOWRB RECORDS PRODUCTION
The production is indexed.
Material gaps remain.
OWRB responded to Web Inquiry 3078 on August 31, 2026 at 12:54 PM Central with a Box production and stated that it contained all requested Cedar Lake and Coffee-dam information. Review of the 103 PDFs found substantial complaint, dam-safety, engineering and water-application records, but did not locate several expressly requested categories. Production completeness remains under review.
OWRB RESPONSEAugust 31 · 12:54 PM CT
BOX PRODUCTION 103 PDFs · 86 unique
A completeness follow-up to Web Inquiry 3078 listed twelve items: five categories not located in the August 31 production, three only partly represented, and four procedural items bearing on the September 15, 2026 Board meeting. OWRB replied at 1:21 PM CT that it would resend the Cedar Lake presentation through Box. The reply did not provide an item-by-item answer to the twelve items.
FOLLOW-UP SUBMITTEDSeptember 1Reported
OWRB REPLYSeptember 1 · 1:21 PM CTReported
ITEM-BY-ITEM ANSWERNone providedReported
Reported A 72-slide file titled Cedar_Lake_presentation_8_13_2026_Final for public release.pptx
(69 visible slides) has been adopted by this project as an OWRB records-production item delivered through Box in response to Web Inquiries 3078 and 3081; its contents are attributed to OWRB. Archive inventory listing is pending. Byte identity with Box file 2406118218844, version v4 as served on September 1, 2026 at 18:49 CDT, was verified against the project copy: 96,667,666 bytes and local SHA-256 651c1e4713b5493593166294ecf6d6f26ea1b195dde16811e83756b75fd65f4a. Whether this is the approximately 69-page investigation requested under item 1 has not been established. The presentation's substantive statements have not been independently reproduced, and its contents are not republished here. On September 2, 2026, a domain-authenticated OWRB Public Information response to Web Inquiry 3086 stated that the presentation is not for distribution in any individual slide or in its entirety
and that the project's clarification had been forwarded to OWRB's legal department for further review. The response did not state a legal or policy basis for the asserted restriction. The filename is the file's own and does not itself establish official public-release authorization.
Additional records activity · September 2–10, 2026
Reported On September 2, the project completed an OWRB web-form interaction for Cedar Lake Dam (OK11073) structural and engineering records and two ODEQ Central Records form interactions concerning Clean Water Act §401 and related surface-water records and Cedar Lake-area well and laboratory records. A completion page appeared after each form. A form completion page confirms only the recorded browser interaction; it does not establish agency intake or processing. ODEQ Central Records later responded on September 10, requesting date-range clarification and referring the complaint-record search to its Environmental Complaints and Local Services Division. The response confirms receipt and routing only.
On September 3, OWRB responded under Web Inquiry 3090 and provided a Box folder containing 29 PDFs. The project verified that all 29 were byte-identical to files already present in the August 31 Coffee Dam production. Review of extracted text and full-page OCR covering all 131 pages located no record responsive to the eleven numbered OK11073 categories within that review scope. This does not establish that OWRB has no responsive records: OWRB supplied no item-by-item disposition, and agency holdings outside the delivered set remain unknown.
Also on September 3, the project sent six preliminary records-location or routing inquiries to EPA Region 6, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service in Oklahoma, two local conservation districts, and the Canadian County Clerk and Assessor. EPA Region 6 responded on September 10 that locating the requested EPA records would require a formal FOIA request. This confirms EPA receipt and routing only; it does not establish responsive records, federal jurisdiction, or a permit requirement. No formal federal FOIA request or fee was authorized.
ENTITY & PARCEL WORK
Relationships are not ownership.
Public records connect people, entities and recorded land references—but do not yet establish every dam's legal owner.
PERSONGlenn Coffeereported manager
PERSONVirgil Coffeesigner · manager, per filed assurances
ENTITYC&F Ranch, L.C.Dam 5 assurance signer · filed representation
ENTITYCoffee Grounds LLCDam 4 assurance signer · filed representation
RELATED ENTITYCoffee Family LLCrelationship requires confirmation
PUBLIC LAND-RECORD REFERENCET11N R10W · Sections 12–13Relevant recorded tracts; no street address published
Dotted relationships are reported or inferred. Deeds and certified entity histories remain requested.
CONTROLLING SOURCES
Follow the record.
These documents consolidate the source trail and state what remains unresolved.
PUBLIC REVIEW
→OWRB Production Review
Verified findings, production chronology and unresolved evidence gaps.
PUBLISHED ANALYSIS
↗Johnson-Becker Cedar Lake Survey
Published StreamStats method, drainage areas and reported storage figures.
OWRB response to Web Inquiry 3078 · August 31, 2026
The Box production contains 103 PDFs representing 86 unique files after hash-based duplicate control, totaling 203.4 MB. OWRB represented that it contained all requested information. Review verifies all six Coffee dam IDs and substantial regulatory material, but did not locate the complete Cedar Lake investigation, underlying datasets, complete well-testing package, complete consent-order materials, or Cedar Lake water-right history.
PUBLICATION METHOD
Labels before conclusions.
A source can be useful without being conclusive. Status labels describe the support for each claim, not whether a person is credible.
Verified
Supported by a primary government record or equivalent authoritative source.
VerifiedReported
Attributed to a named source or document but not yet independently confirmed.
ReportedDisputed
Material sources reach conflicting conclusions.
DisputedUnknown
The available record does not support a responsible conclusion.
UnknownRequested
A specific primary record has been requested but not yet obtained.
RequestedPublished findings rely on publicly obtainable sources. Visitor submissions are not published or treated as factual support unless the relevant information is independently established in a citable public record.
COMMUNITY INFORMATION
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