Where Wichita Falls water comes from: three lakes, reverse osmosis and reuse

The water in a Wichita Falls glass starts in one of three lakes, none of them inside the city. Some of it has also been through a wastewater plant on the way, on purpose. That part surprises people who move here, and it is how the city got through the worst drought in its history.

This guide follows it from the lakes to the kitchen, using the city's 2026 drinking water report and its water pages.

Three lakes

Lake Kickapoo is the upper lake on the Little Wichita River, about 18 miles southwest of the city in Archer County. The city's report dates it to 1945. Full, it holds 106,000 acre-feet, about 35 billion gallons, and it takes its name from the Kickapoo people and from Kickapoo Creek, which runs into it.

Lake Arrowhead sits lower on the same river, about 15 miles southeast of the city and mostly in Clay County. Work on it began in 1965. It holds up to 228,000 acre-feet, about 74 billion gallons, and Lake Arrowhead State Park is built around it.

Those two carried the city for about 80 years, in the report's words. Their water is pumped into a 75-million-gallon reservoir inside the city and mixed there before treatment.

Lake Kemp is the big one, and the odd one. It was finished in 1924, 37 miles west of the city, and holds up to 245,308 acre-feet, about 80 billion gallons. Joseph A. Kemp, one of the men who built early Wichita Falls, pushed for it to stop flooding downstream. The city drank from it into the 1950s, then gave up because the water tasted of gypsum. Kemp water is slightly brackish, which is a polite word for salty.

How Kemp water came back

The report says Lake Kemp became usable again in 2008, with new treatment. Its water is now moved through an irrigation ditch to a reservoir northwest of town, and from there to a separate plant built for it.

Microfiltration pulls the water through fibers whose pores are too small for most impurities. Reverse osmosis then forces it through a membrane of 0.0001 micron, which lets the water through and leaves most of the salt behind, the way large ships make drinking water from the sea. What comes out is so clean that the city blends it with conventionally treated water from the other two lakes, which, the city's treatment page says, gives it some flavor and character.

At the treatment plants

Most of the city's water goes through two conventional plants. Jasper was built in 1941 and expanded in 1951 and 2005. Cypress was built in 1961 and expanded in 1987. The city's page walks through the steps:

• Chlorine dioxide goes into the raw water on the way in, to start disinfection and help with taste and odor. Chloramines, made from chlorine and ammonia, are the main disinfectant after that.
• The water is softened. Lime takes out carbonate hardness.
• The city adds fluoride. The page is plain that this is not required, and says the city does it to help prevent cavities in children's teeth.
• Sand filters catch what is left, including Cryptosporidium and Giardia, protozoans that hold up against disinfectant. The city has tested its lake water and its tap water for those parasites since 1994.

Reuse, and the drought that forced it

From 2010 to 2015, Wichita Falls came close to running out of water. The city's Lake Ringgold page says the total supply fell below 19 percent, the lowest since the lakes were built. People sold their homes and moved away, some businesses closed, and Sheppard Air Force Base was planning to move missions to other bases. Restrictions cut the city's daily demand to half of normal.

To get through, the city put in direct potable reuse: treated wastewater, treated again, and sent back into the drinking supply. When the drought broke, public works built a slower version. Since January 2018, highly treated water from the River Road Resource Recovery Facility has been piped into Lake Arrowhead, where it mixes with the lake before it is drawn out and treated like any other lake water. That is indirect potable reuse.

The 2026 report puts numbers on it. In 2025 the city sent more than 1.3 billion gallons to Lake Arrowhead this way, and more than 15.3 billion gallons since 2018. By the city's count, that replaced about 30 percent of the raw water treated at Cypress and Jasper.

How the water tests

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality classes the city as a Superior Water System, its highest classification. The 2026 report says the system had zero failures and met every federal and state standard. Its tables list every regulated contaminant found at any level, each beside its legal limit.

Lake levels, and the next lake

The lake levels the city posts on its website cover Lake Arrowhead, Lake Kickapoo and a combined total for those two. Lake Kemp is not in that number.

The city's water goes well past its own limits. The Ringgold page counts 15 wholesale customers, from Olney to Burkburnett and from Electra to Byers, about 150,000 people in all. It argues that a drought as bad as the last one would leave the region short even starting from full lakes, and it names Lake Ringgold, a site on the Little Wichita River near Henrietta, as the answer. The city calls it the last workable reservoir site for the area. A 2015 long-range plan weighed ten options, among them piping in groundwater from the Texas Panhandle or water from Lake Texoma, and found Ringgold the most economical.

Do not expect it soon. First comes a state water rights permit, which the city is working on now, then a Clean Water Act permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, then construction: 15 to 25 years in all, by the city's estimate.

What it means at home

• Sprinklers are off from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., all year. Hand watering is allowed at any time.
• Restaurants bring water only when you ask. That is a year-round city rule too.
• A water well or rainwater system holding more than 3,000 gallons has to be registered with the public works department.
• For a main break, a leak you cannot find or an emergency shutoff, the city's water distribution line is answered around the clock.

Using our listings

Our Plumbers page lists plumbing businesses in the Wichita Falls area by name, address and phone. Texas licenses plumbers through the State Board of Plumbing Examiners, which offers a license lookup. We have not hired or checked any of the businesses we list, and a listing is not a license check.