WICHITA FALLS (KFDX/KJTL) — Summer in Texoma usually sees the thermometers rising and the lakes falling.

That’s been the norm for decades, but more so when we were dangerously close to running out of water in the historic drought of 2011 to 2015.

Residents still remember trying to keep lawns and plants alive and saving every drop of water they could collect.

They also remember watching miles of big, black pipeline snaking across the city and fields to Lake Arrowhead, with first the temporary reuse project and then the permanent project. And now that project has reached a milestone.

Since going online in 2018, 10 billion gallons of treated water from the River Road plant that used to go downstream has been pumped back into Lake Arrowhead.

That amount is equal to about two years use of water.

The project, including about 17 miles of pipe, cost around $30 million and can pump around 16 million gallons of water a day back to the lake when needed, as it is right now.