Streamwater is considered to be publicly owned; the Oklahoma Water Resources board is responsible for appropriation for all areas of the State of Oklahoma except the Grand River basin, where the Grand River Dam Authority (GRDA) has responsibility for allocation on a use-it or lose-it basis.

[3] Groundwater is considered a property right in Oklahoma, and defined as “fresh water (less than 5,000 parts per million total dissolved solids) under the surface of the earth regardless of geologic structure in which it is standing or moving outside the cut bank of any definite stream”[2] Oklahoma Water Resources Board permits the withdrawal of groundwater on a use-it or lose-it basis.

Because the Red River Compact, (which apportions rights to water from the Red River among Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana) was approved by Congress, the Oklahoma statutes did not violate the “dormant” commerce clause, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit concluded in its decision of September 7, 2011.

By approving the compact, which the court said “explicitly defers to and recognizes plenary state authority over water use,” Congress gave the states “broad regulatory authority” in “unqualified terms,” allowing Oklahoma to put restrictions on interstate water transactions.

This ruling would be definitively affirmed in a unanimous opinion by Justice Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court on June 13, 2013 in Tarrant Regional Water Dist.

The Choctaws claim that the United States had granted them authority over water resources in their land in the 1830 Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek, prior to the enforced emigration from their ancestral homeland to Indian Territory.

If Oklahoma wins this case... tribal water rights could be severely impaired and the future social and economic wealth of all the tribes in the state could be jeopardized, beginning with the Choctaw and Chickasaw.

[10] As the result of a Supreme Court Decision, it was decided that three of the tribes of Indian Territory were the owners of a portion of the Arkansas River bed.

[11] To settle pending damage claims, the Congress passed the Cherokee, Choctaw, and Chickasaw Nations Claims Settlement Act,[12] While the original Supreme Court Decision dealt with mineral rights under the river bed, aspects of the case may impact water rights in the State of Oklahoma.

Members represent recreational, industrial, irrigation, municipal, agricultural, soil conservation, and rural residential water uses.

The Board administers financial assistance programs to fund eligible public water supply and wastewater treatment projects and improvements.