The Pensacola Dam in Langley impounds Grand Lake downstream. What role the dam plays in Miami’s history of damaging floods has been the subject of a decades-long dispute between the town and the Grand River Dam Authority. 

Melinda Stotts, spokeswoman for the City of Miami, said she and city officials are pleased with the federal order. 

“It’s a big win for us,” Stotts said. “We haven’t won the war, but we have won a battle.”

The Grand River Dam Authority could still appeal the order. The agency is currently weighing its options, spokesman Justin Alberty said in a statement.

“The January 18, 2023, order by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) appears to change 85 years of legal precedence,” Alberty said. “If the federal government is committed to providing flood control measures, we believe they need to provide adequate easements.”

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The federal order gives the Grand River Dam Authority 120 days to submit a report on flooding in the upper reaches of Grand Lake, an analysis of land upstream of the dam that is prone to flooding and whether the agency has property rights to those lands.

Then-Sen. Jim Inhofe authored legislation in 2019 that removed the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s authority to require the Grand River Dam Authority to purchase additional land affected by flooding. But the new ruling states that federal regulators still have authority to do so under the dam’s current license, which was issued in 1992. 

The Grand River Dam Authority is a non-appropriated state agency established by the Oklahoma Legislature in 1935. It operates and oversees Grand Lake and the Pensacola Dam. The dam is currently undergoing relicensing through federal regulators, and the 1992 license remains in effect. 

The Grand River Dam Authority has been party to numerous lawsuits since the early 90s by property owners in the Miami area who have been flooded. Experts hired by those property owners say that the dam causes a backwater effect in the upper extremities of Grand Lake, where the Neosho, Elk and Spring rivers converge.

In 2018, the City of Miami filed a complaint with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, claiming that the Pensacola Dam had caused repeated flooding on 13,000 acres outside the lake’s current project boundaries and failed to acquire easements for the flooded areas in violation of its license.

The Grand River Dam Authority claimed the dam did not have an impact on upstream flooding, and that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was responsible for all aspects of flood control, including purchasing land that might be flooded. The Corps of Engineers told the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that while it is responsible for ordering releases from the Pensacola Dam during flood conditions, it falls to the Grand River Dam Authority to acquire lands around the lake impacted by flooding.

Federal regulators rejected the Grand River Dam Authority’s claim that it was not responsible for purchasing lands affected by flooding.

Miami Mayor Bless Parker called the federal order a “good win for our citizens,”

“I grew up in a home that flooded, and I understand the impact, and it’s about time somebody stood up to GRDA,” Parker said. “These facts matter, and this proves the fight for our city and its residents was worth the battle. It’s a huge victory for our citizens and our tribal partners that have suffered the continual flooding for close to 40 years. It’s nice to finally get some traction and to be heard at a federal level. We hope that we’ll get this same attention and support from our current and future state legislature.”

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At the monthly GRDA Board of Directors meeting on Wednesday in Langley, the board unanimously approved entering into a $136-million contract with Mitsubishi Power America for the purchase of a 420-megawatt generating unit and a $75-million, 12-year service agreement with Mitsubishi. 

The offer from Mitsubishi Power also includes options, not included in Wednesday’s approved contract, for Mitsubishi Power to upgrade the unit to allow for a hydrogen-natural gas fuel mix in the future. 

The contracts are still pending final approval from the GRDA CEO and general counsel.

The new natural gas-fired unit will replace the Energy Center’s Unit 2, a 492-megawatt coal-fired generator that came online in 1985. The coal-fired generator had several issues over the years, including a fire in 2016 that caused between $80 million and $200 million in damage.

The increasing regulatory requirements on coal-fired plants, including limits on emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide and coal-ash waste disposal are driving up costs, said Robert Ladd, vice president of generation operation at GRDA.

The old coal-fired unit would likely not be able to meet new federal requirements that are nearing finalization for Oklahoma  power plants on nitrous oxides, the chemicals partially responsible for smog and acid rain. An updated scrubber, a device that reduces emission pollutants, on Unit 2 would likely cost more than $250 million.

Finally, Unit 2 is considered “uninsurable,” Ladd said.

“There’s a lot of risk in that operation and it continues to be uninsurable today,” Ladd said. “It’s exposed to the highest degree of regulatory uncertainty, lacks the operational flexibility that’s needed for the market, has the highest expense across all of our GRDA-owned fleet, and also carries the most inherent risk, operational and financial.”

According to slides presented at Wednesday’s meeting, the new generation unit is expected to be installed just east of the Grand River Energy Center’s Unit 3, a combined cycle natural gas-fired generator that went online in 2017. 

The $465 million combined cycle natural gas-fired Unit 3 came online in 2017, and was considered one of the most advanced generators of its kind.

Construction on the Unit 4 project is expected to begin in January 2024, and is expected to be up and running by April 2026.

As part of the deal with Mitsubishi Power, workers would also provide upgrades to Unit 3, allowing it to get an additional 13 to 14 megawatts of power, Ladd said. 

The new unit would be a simple-cycle unit, meaning it takes only minutes to fire up and begin generating electricity, Ladd said, compared to Unit 3, which can take hours to get fully up and running.

GRDA President and CEO Dan Sullivan said he has already had meetings with bond underwriters for the project. Many of the details are still being worked out, he said, but he hopes to have a deal in place by December.

The post Grand River Dam Authority looks to replace its last coal-fired generator with a new $410 million project appeared first on The Frontier.

The Oklahoma Public Employees Retirement System is the first to release an estimate for how much it might cost retirees to shed investments from blacklisted companies. And the cost could be much higher after other trading costs are factored in, the retirement system’s chief financial officer warned Thursday. 

Under Oklahoma’s Energy Discrimination Elimination Act, public retirement systems are banned from doing business with companies on a state blacklist for those accused of boycotting the fossil fuel industry. State and local agencies are also prohibited from contracting with blacklisted companies. Oklahoma enacted the law in 2022. 

Oklahoma State Treasurer Todd Russ released his list of blacklisted companies in May, which 

Includes some of the biggest names in the financial sector, including BlackRock, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America. As The Frontier first reported, many firms on the list don’t actually qualify for inclusion under the law and the criteria for how companies can get off the list is murky at best.

Brad Tillberg, the Oklahoma Public Employees Retirement System’s chief investment officer, said at a meeting Thursday that divisting funds with blacklisted companies would affect nearly two-thirds of OPERS’s assets, or $6.9 billion. The vast majority of the affected funds are held through contracts with the multinational investment company BlackRock. 

The OPERS investment committee voted to send a declaration to the full retirement system board, stating that divesting funds from blacklisted companies would be a breach of fiduciary duty to state retirees.

“It’s just patently obvious that this is just against any good sense,” said committee and board member Edward Petersen.

Russ, who sits on the OPERS board, later pushed back on the cost estimate, saying the figures were based on four-year old data. He also opposed the resolution against divesting affecting assets. 

The committee’s recommendation died from lack of support. 

Blacklisted companies have until Aug. 3 to demonstrate to the Oklahoma State Treasurer’s office that they are no longer boycotting oil and natural gas before the divestment process begins.

“If they just simply say we’re not boycotting anymore but none of the other actions and activities we’ve seen out in public and other places has changed … if that’s still happening, then our position probably won’t change,” Russ said.

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Part of the confusion comes from the language in the law — in order to be considered a “financial company” subject to landing on the blacklist, a company must be publicly traded. 

But seven of the 13 companies on Oklahoma’s list are not publicly traded. Other blacklisted companies, including BlackRock Inc., one of the largest financial services companies in the world that manages more than half the assets of the  Oklahoma Public Employees Retirement System, claims it does not boycott oil and gas and has invested billions into Oklahoma energy sector companies for its clients.   

In an interview with The Frontier, Oklahoma State Treasurer Todd Russ said he chose to add private firms on the list anyway because of a section in the law that requires any state or local government entity from entering into contracts with any company that doesn’t certify they aren’t boycotting the oil and gas industry.

The Frontier found that the Oklahoma State Treasurer’s office applied criteria for blacklisting companies inconsistently, leaving some, including a few of the largest banks in the world, claiming they have been arbitrarily and wrongly banned from doing business with the state. The law could also have other far-reaching effects on everything from financing for public works projects to how state payroll checks are processed.

Absent any specific criteria in the law, Russ said he made some decisions based on how investment firms voted on behalf of their clients at energy company shareholder meetings. He said he believes some votes on environmental matters have been against shareholders’ and companies’ best interests.

In other states, similar blacklists have been blamed for higher government borrowing costs, and some public pension systems have warned that their retirees could lose tens of millions of dollars each year.

Though the state’s Energy Discrimination Elimination Act deals mostly with public pension funds, one section of the law prohibits any government entity from entering into contracts with blacklisted firms, but provides exceptions if doing so would violate an agency’s financial or legal obligations or if a company provides exclusive services. 

The Oklahoma State Treasurer uses blacklisted bank JPMorgan Chase & Co. to issue most of the state’s financial disbursements, such as employee payroll and retirement checks. Bank of America, also on the blacklist, contracts with the state for its state debit card system. 

Russ said that his office was in regular discussions with JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, but did not rule out ending the state’s relationship with the companies. 

“We will end the relationships that don’t fit that we can. As far as the timing, it allows up to a year to make that transition. We’re having those conversations now on what that’s going to look like,” Russ said. “We’ll use whatever discretion necessary to make those kinds of decisions when we get to those points.”

Carly Atchison, spokeswoman for Gov. Kevin Stitt, said finding other companies to handle those services would not be an issue and the state could use a competitive bidding process to find the best deals for the state.

“There are plenty of other companies, not just the big brand names like Bank of America, who don’t discriminate against our major assets and can handle payroll and would love to do business with the state of Oklahoma,” Atchison said. 

The effects are already being seen outside the state’s pension systems.

On May 5, Wells Fargo resigned as the lead underwriter for the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority’s proposed $500 million bond sale for its turnpike expansion projects in response to being put on the restricted list, and some municipalities in Oklahoma say they are seeing higher interest rates for bonds as a result of the move.

Russ characterized  Wells Fargo’s exit as an example of the company “punishing states that are energy-producing states.”

Law creates confusion for state retirement fund managers 

State retirement fund directors say their concerns and requests for guidance from the State Treasurer’s office have been ignored.

One state retirement fund director said the system also faces possible financial penalties if it divests assets from blacklisted firms. Treasury office staff said the agency has not performed an analysis on financial penalties state pension systems will face if they divest or what effects the list will have on government bond underwriting.

The heads of two of the state’s retirement systems said they have reached out to Russ’ office numerous times with questions, but got few answers.

“We can’t talk to Treasurer Russ. He won’t respond to us. He will have somebody from his office send you a very generic email,” said Ginger Sigler, executive director of the Oklahoma Police Pension and Retirement System, during the retirement system’s board meeting May 17.

“It would be nice if we could talk to the treasurer and he could tell us what the statutes mean,” she said during the meeting. “He won’t talk to us.”

The lack of communication and dearth of clear criteria for how the 13 companies landed on the list has left some legal experts scratching their heads.

“We’re not quite sure the underlying basis is for why they were placed on the list,” said Marc Edwards, general counsel for three Oklahoma pension funds that serve police officers, firefighters and other law enforcement in the state. “So we’re not quite sure how the managers can cease boycotting when it’s not entirely clear why they’re on the list.”

Joe Fox, executive director for the Oklahoma Public Employees Retirement System, said he too had reached out to the treasurer’s office seeking guidance but had gotten no substantial response. Fox, who attended the Police Pension & Retirement System’s most recent meeting, declined to give details about what types of penalties or problems OPERS could face if forced to divest from blacklisted companies. He said he wanted to first discuss the issue at the next OPERS board meeting on June 1.

BlackRock, which is publicly traded, manages about 60% of the Oklahoma Public Employees Retirement System, or around $5.9 billion. The retirement system serves more than 80,000 active and retired state employees and their beneficiaries. 

In a statement, BlackRock said that it invests over $15 billion in Oklahoma public energy companies on behalf of its clients and $320 billion in public energy companies globally along with investments in renewable energy. BlackRock claims the blacklist is only hurting retirees.

“Boycott lists raise costs for Oklahoma taxpayers and reduce returns for firefighters, teachers, and state employees seeking to retire with dignity,” the statement said. 

Russ said that he has reached out to the state pension fund heads and is scheduled to meet with some of them in the coming weeks.

“My door is wide open,” Russ said. “If they’re wanting to send me their busywork and have 25 international money managers come and sit down at my desk in my office, that’s not my role. That’s their role, to deal with their money managers.”

In an interview with The Frontier, Sigler said the police retirement and pension system would likely face significant penalties if it were to divest, though she was unsure how much those penalties would cost retirees. The $3-billion pension system was already in the process of divesting from some of the companies on the list when the law was passed, including $486,000 it has invested through the banned firm Grosvenor Capital Management. 

While the police pension system has around $105 million invested with blacklisted firm JPMorgan Chase, the assets are part of the company’s real estate fund, which by default does not invest in the oil and gas industry.

Oil and gas states move to punish ‘woke’ investing 

Oklahoma is one of at least seven states to ban business with financial institutions that practice  

Environment, Social, and Governance investing. The practice screens investments for ethical considerations including environmental degradation and corporate leadership. 

Critics say these practices unfairly punish the oil and gas industry. Conservative politicians have grafted ESG investment policies onto the country’s broader culture war and social unrest, and have likened the investment guidelines to “woke” ideology.

The fossil fuel industry, which has heavily funded efforts for decades to cast doubt on man made climate change, is an economic and political juggernaut in Oklahoma and other states with blacklists. Around 8.6% of all workers in Oklahoma work in the oil and natural gas industry, and much of the state’s budget comes through a gross production tax on oil and gas, as well as an estimated overall economic impact of $64.9 billion to the state in 2022, according to the Oklahoma Energy Resources Board. In 2021, Oklahoma was the fifth largest producer of natural gas in the nation and sixth largest oil producer. The industry also contributes mightily to state and federal politicians both on and off the books, as well as helping fund numerous charitable and community organizations throughout the state.

When Oklahoma’s blacklist of financial companies was announced May 3, several of the state’s political leaders crowed about the law’s support of the fossil fuel industry.

“I’m the governor of Oklahoma. I’m going to protect our oil and gas industry,” Stitt said on Fox News Business shortly after the blacklist was announced. “I’m going to protect an all-of-the-above approach in our state. Then our pension funds, some of these investment houses are using our pension funds to push their political agenda. We’re simply not going to let that happen in the state of Oklahoma.”

View the companies’ responses to the Treasurer’s letter here

Adrian Beverage, president and CEO of the Oklahoma Bankers Association, recently issued a public statement condemning anti-ESG policies. 

 “While these bills provide elected officials a short-term political victory, they are also giving their constituents a loss that will cost them dearly for years to come,” he said. 

Nearly all of the language in Oklahoma’s Energy Discrimination Act is copied directly from Texas’s law, which was passed in June 2021. The language was introduced as draft model legislation later in 2021 at the American Legislative Exchange Council, a corporate bill mill that provides model legislation mostly to conservative state legislators, for lawmakers to introduce in their states, though it was ultimately not adopted by the group’s task forces.

Some blacklisted companies say they don’t boycott oil and gas 

Several blacklisted firms deny they are boycotting the energy industry at all.

The nation’s largest bank, JPMorgan Chase, called its inclusion on Oklahoma’s blacklist “baseless,” in a statement to The Frontier and said that it provided over $2 billion in financing and other services to 40 companies in Oklahoma’s oil and gas sector between 2021 and 2022.

None of the 129 companies that responded to a survey from the state treasurer’s office asking for information on their investment practices reported they were boycotting fossil fuel, a review of the responses by The Frontier found. Some companies, including many that were not blacklisted, reported that they weighed ESG factors among other considerations before making investment decisions. 

Jordan Harvey, Russ’s chief of staff, said Oklahoma’s survey was developed using other states’ questionnaires, as well as energy company shareholder votes that investment firms participated in and actions the firms took part in through climate change-focused organizations, such as the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative.

The treasurer’s office did not have a scoring system for answers to evaluate whether firms were actively undermining the state’s oil and gas industry, Harvey said.

Some firms with remarkably similar responses to those of blacklisted companies were not banned, raising questions about the state’s consistency, The Frontier’s analysis found.

State Street Corp. and Northern Trust Co., both publicly traded companies, had nearly identical responses to the survey. Northern Trust, which has a corporate goal of zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 did not end up on the blacklist, but State Street did. Northern Trust is the master custodian of advisors for the Oklahoma Public Employees Retirement System. The retirement system also has a $39 million cash account with Northern Trust. 

State Street, a Boston-based financial services and banking company, said in a statement that it  hoped to work with state leaders to clear the issue up.

“We strongly disagree with the Oklahoma State Treasurer’s analysis. State Street does not discriminate against oil and gas companies, or any other industry sectors,” the statement said. 

Russ said he decided to make decisions about what investment firms to include on the blacklist based on how they voted shares in energy stocks on behalf of their clients. These actions are sometimes called proxy votes. He said he wanted to ensure Oklahoma retirees’ money was not being used to undermine the oil and gas industry.

“So they’re using my money, and they get to vote and control the outcomes by using my money,” Russ said. “Are you voting those proxies for these companies in a manner that looks like Oklahoma values, that supports energy and supports oil and gas? Or are you pressuring them and using shareholder resolutions to manipulate that process, to tell them that we’re going to actually take this and invest it in people that don’t believe in oil and gas and energy states?”

Russ said he would consider removing companies from the blacklist if they disavowed the United Nations’ Paris Agreement, which he characterized as having a mission “to put the energy industry out of business by 2050,” he said. 

At least nine other companies that responded to Russ’s letter but did not end up on the state’s blacklist also said they do not fit the definition of a “financial company” under the Energy Discrimination Act because they are not publicly traded. Seven of those companies did not complete the questionnaire.

In response to Oklahoma’s request for information on its investment practices, Lexington Partners, a privately-held New York financial firm that manages about $55 billion in assets, said it doesn’t qualify for the blacklist since it is not a publicly traded company. Yet it still ended up there.

Russ said he chose to put non-public companies on the list because of a section in the law that requires any state or local government entity, including state retirement systems, from entering into contracts with some companies that don’t certify they are not boycotting the energy industry.

The Energy Discrimination Elimination Act also states that financial companies that do not respond to a request for information from the State Treasurer’s office within 60 days  are assumed to be boycotting the oil and gas industry.

Seven companies that responded after the deadline or did not respond at all were put on the blacklist. But at least one other company that did not respond, Price-Edwards & Co. was not blacklisted, and one that responded late, Axiom Investors, was also not put on the blacklist, the records show.

Chase Rankin, executive director of the Oklahoma Firefighter Pension and Retirement System, said the system has about $18 million in direct holdings through blacklisted companies.

The state’s pension systems have until June 2 to respond to the State Treasurer’s office and notify the blacklisted financial companies. After that, the companies have until Aug. 3 to demonstrate they have ceased their alleged boycotts.

“Once the deadline passes … then we would have to make a decision about whether or not asking our managers to sell our position in these financial companies would impact our portfolio in such a way that would breach our fiduciary duties,” Rankin said. 

The police pension system board voted on May 17 to send a letter to the State Treasurer’s office stating that it has no assets eligible for divestment because many of the blacklisted companies are not publicly traded and other various exemptions in the law. 

Correction: An earlier version of this story misidentified Adrian Beverage, president and CEO of the Oklahoma Bankers Association.

The post Most companies on Oklahoma’s blacklist aren’t actually subject to a state law banning ‘woke’ investing. The State Treasurer added them anyway appeared first on The Frontier.

Per- and polyfluroalkyl substances — often referred to as PFAS — do not break down over time.  

It’s a group of more than 9,000 man-made chemicals synthesized in the 1940s that have since been used in firefighting foam, non-stick cookware, waterproofing products and even pizza and hamburger boxes. These substances are also sometimes called “forever chemicals.” 

There are at least nine sites in Oklahoma where ground or water contamination from forever chemicals has been confirmed, mostly at military installations, airports and at least one municipality’s drinking water, according to data compiled by the Environmental Working Group. The advocacy group also lists numerous other suspected sites for PFAS pollution in the state. 

PFAS are capable of accumulating in human and animal bodies through food, air and water. The National Institute of Environmental and Health Sciences estimates that around 97 percent of Americans have some level of PFAS in their blood and research has shown elevated levels can cause decreased fertility, developmental delays and effects in children, increased risk of certain types of cancer, reduced immune systems and increased cholesterol.

Though testing for PFAS and similar chemicals in public water supplies is encouraged by the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality, it has not been a requirement. Many public water systems operated by cities and other local governments don’t do any testing. 

Two bills that would have required the state Department of Environmental Quality to do more testing and public notice of potential contamination from PFAS and similar chemicals were introduced in the Oklahoma Legislature this year, but neither successfully made it out of the Senate.  

New rules the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has proposed would require public water systems to test at least four times a year, alert people of contamination and take steps to remove the chemicals.

“Every person should have access to clean and safe drinking water,” said Jennifer McLean, director of the EPA’s Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water. “That’s why EPA is acting now — to protect people’s drinking water from PFAS contamination. The science is clear: Long term exposure to certain PFAS linked to significant health risks.” 

The proposed federal rules would set the maximum contaminant levels in public water supplies for the PFAS chemicals known as PFOS and PFOA, used at 4 parts per trillion, as well as combined limits on four other PFAS chemicals. The chemicals are listed as possibly carcinogenic to humans by the International Agency for Research on Cancer.

If approved, water systems would have three years to begin monitoring for PFAS contamination. Water systems that rely on surface water and all groundwater systems serving more than 10,000 customers would be required to test for the chemicals quarterly, while groundwater systems that serve fewer than 10,000 customers would be required to do monitoring twice per year.

The EPA is currently taking comments from the public, state agencies and stakeholders on the proposed rule.

Erin Hatfield, spokeswoman for the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality, said the state agency is likely to offer comments on the proposed rule, but that some PFAS monitoring for large public water systems and randomly selected small water systems in the state has already begun. The state’s environmental lab is able to perform testing for PFAS, she said, and some other states are using Oklahoma’s facilities to test water samples.

“I think the big takeaway here is we have started monitoring, but long-term anything, we’re still going over this proposal and working through it,” she said.

Some water systems in the state are already required to begin monitoring for forever chemicals beginning in this year under the EPA’s 2021 Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule.  

“Oklahoma doesn’t require it, so most places never test for it. So they won’t know until their required testing comes around,” said Tim Collier, plant supervisor at the Altus water treatment plant. “That’s when people are really going to start noticing it in their water or not.”

Altus is home to Altus Air Force Base, where 11 of the 12 groundwater wells on the base tested had high levels of PFAS in 2018. The Air Force base gets its drinking water from the City of Altus, which has not shown signs of PFAS contamination, according to an Air Force press release.

Collier said Altus has already been testing for PFAS in its drinking water about once a year and all tests have thus far come in under the proposed maximum contaminant level. 

However, for water systems where PFAS is detected above the proposed maximum limits, it could mean significant costs to upgrade the system, Collier said.

“It would have to come out of emergency funds along with grants and stuff, because nothing for treatment is cheap,” he said. 

According to the EPA, there is around $9 billion available to water systems looking to monitor and reduce PFAS and other emerging contaminants through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passed in 2022. Nationwide, the EPA estimates that the benefits of the proposed regulation could save between $908 million and $1.23 billion per year based on reduced instances of kidney and other cancers, heart attacks, strokes and developmental issues in children, while annual cost is anticipated to run between $772 million and $1.2 billion, with an additional $30 million to $61 million in possible hazardous waste disposal.

Of the nation’s approximately 66,000 public water systems, between 3,400 and 6,300 are expected to exceed at least one of the proposed maximum contamination levels, according to the EPA.

Oklahoma City’s water system tested for several PFAS chemicals in 2013 and 2014, with test results showing amounts below the then-detectable levels of 10 parts per trillion. Further testing in 2019 and 2022 showed results below the newly proposed levels, according to officials with Oklahoma City’s municipal water department.

The proposed regulations would require more frequent testing at both of Oklahoma City’s two water treatment plants and the results would be included in an annual report on drinking water quality, according to officials with the city’s water department. Oklahoma City is scheduled to begin quarterly testing in January 2024.

Oklahoma City gets its drinking water from five separate reservoirs — Lake Stanley Draper, Lake Hefner, Canton Lake, Atoka Reservoir and McGee Creek Reservoir.

Tulsa’s water system is also preparing for the proposed regulation. The city has already been testing for PFAS at both of its two water plants and has so far gotten a clean bill of health, said Eric Lee, Tulsa director of water and sewer.

Tulsa gets its drinking water from Lake Eucha and Spavinaw Lake as well as Lake Oolagah. While testing for PFAS has been done on Eucha and Spavinaw waters, it has yet to be done at Lake Oolagah, which is administered by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Lee said.

“We’re probably going to continue doing some testing, just to make sure we’re prepared when the rule comes out,” Lee said.

Even if PFAS was detected above the proposed levels in Tulsa’s system, Lee said, the filters at Tulsa’s water plants use a granular activated carbon system, which is one of the recommended ways to remove the chemicals.

“Even if we were to detect it, we have what we think is the best available technology in our filters to remove it,” Lee said.

While the EPA’s current proposed regulation does not address PFAS put into the environment through wastewater treatment systems, wastewater maximum contaminant limits, testing and filtering are on the federal agency’s agenda next.

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“We shut it down,” Stitt told The Frontier. “… There’s too many unanswered questions and it didn’t smell right to me that something was being shipped halfway across the country.”

Stitt’s office received an email around 2 p.m. Saturday from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, notifying the state that Norfolk Southern Railway Company intended to ship “waste material” from Ohio to Lone Mountain, a toxic waste storage facility near Waynoka operated by the company Clean Harbors Inc. 

Around 5 p.m., Stitt was informed that 2,600 cubic yards, or 3,640 tons, of contaminated soil were expected to arrive in Oklahoma in less than 48 hours on Monday. 

Once informed waste was on its way to the state, Stitt reached out to Oklahoma’s two Senators, Markwayne Mullin and James Lankford, as well as Rep. Frank Lucas, R-Cheyenne, in an attempt to further understand the situation and prevent the waste from arriving in the state.

Stitt and the lawmakers came to the conclusion that Oklahoma would reject the shipment. 

At the time, trucks carrying the waste were already on the way from Ohio. But late Saturday evening, Stitt told the EPA on a call that Oklahoma would not accept the contaminated soil, blocking its arrival in the state.

In a statement, Maria Michalos, a spokesperson for the EPA, accused Stitt of playing politics. She said Norfolk Southern is already under contract with a disposal facility in Oklahoma that is able to accept the waste and the EPA “has safeguards in place to ensure communities are protected every step of the way.”

“Governor Stitt is playing politics at the expense of the people of East Palestine, Ohio. It’s not only wrong, it’s unlawful to refuse shipments of waste because they come from other states,” Michalos said. “We are reviewing all legal authorities to ensure that the people of East Palestine, who’ve suffered enough already, don’t become victims of this political grandstanding.”

The Feb. 3 Ohio train derailment released toxic chemicals into the air, water and soil. Norfolk Southern, the owner of the derailed train, is responsible for the cleanup, including shipping the toxic waste out of the area. And the EPA was required to sign off on the company shipping the waste to Oklahoma. Officials from Clean Harbors and Norfolk Southern did not respond to requests for comment.

After Norfolk Southern shipped waste to Indiana with little warning, Stitt said officials there warned him to keep a lookout for the possibility of shipments to Oklahoma.

And though it’s not unusual for facilities in Oklahoma to take in hazardous waste, the lack of transparency and the high-profile nature of the East Palestine derailment made Oklahoma officials weary about accepting the toxic soil, Stitt said.

Both Senators agree with Stitt’s decision to block the toxic waste shipment from entering Oklahoma.

“There are too many unknowns for this request from the EPA to move hazardous waste from East Palestine, Ohio to Oklahoma,” Lankford said in a statement. “The EPA has not guaranteed the safety of the people of Ohio, and Oklahoma should be as rightly concerned about any substance coming here for disposal.”

Mullin, who is the ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works subcommittee on Chemical Safety, which has jurisdiction over issues of chemical safety and waste management, said he “has been in constant communication with” Stitt and after evaluating the options “stand(s) by his informed decision.”

Norfolk Southern has struggled to find places willing to accept toxic waste from East Palestine since the derailment. Officials in Texas and Michigan have also rejected shipments. 

The EPA took over cleanup efforts in February and Norfolk Southern remains legally obligated to identify and clean up contaminated soil and water resources,  including finding places to dispose of it.

This story has been updated to include a statement from the EPA.

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Beth Wilson, who lives directly across the road from the proposed industrial farm, said she worries poultry litter will contaminate a small stream that runs through her land where her children play. The creek eventually flows into nearby Lake Hudson. Phosphorus from poultry litter can contribute to algae blooms that can kill fish. 

“This has always been a farming community,” Wilson said. “I’m not against one or two chicken houses going in, but I am against six chicken houses going in on that small piece of property.”

Many Strang residents began looking for ways to stop the operation. But they didn’t know that the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry had already approved plans to build six, 39,600 square-foot buildings capable of holding 324,000 birds at a time, with no notice to the public or input from neighbors.  The operation will produce birds for the Arkansas-based poultry processor Simmons Foods. 

There are currently no public notice requirements in state law, or a formal process for citizens to protest poultry farms at the state Department of Agriculture, other than sending a letter.

Some help could come as the state of Oklahoma and several major poultry processors, including Tyson Foods and Simmons Foods, are hammering out a settlement on pollution from poultry farms in Eastern Oklahoma’s scenic Illinois River Watershed. But the problem has grown even beyond that area since the state first moved to sue the companies in 2005. The state has approved 23 new poultry operations in Eastern Oklahoma since June 2022, with another six operations still awaiting approval. The area saw an explosion of new poultry farms between 2017 and 2018 when Simmons Foods opened a processing plant in Gentry, Arkansas. Producers now raise more birds in larger facilities. Oklahoma poultry farms generated 197,121 tons of litter in 2018, up from 110,996 tons in 2003. 

A federal judge ruled in January that the poultry processors are responsible for water pollution from the independent producers they contract with to raise birds. But the judge’s ruling only covered the Illinois River Watershed, which includes parts of Delaware, Adair, Cherokee and Sequoyah counties in Oklahoma.

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond has recently declined to comment on the settlement negotiations. But he told The Frontier in an interview in early February that he wants any agreement with the poultry companies to reach beyond the Illinois River, expanding protections to the Grand (Neosho) River watershed, which includes Strang. This would allow Oklahoma to avoid suing the poultry companies a second time, he said. 

“We just need parties at the table to reach a global resolution that changes the face of Eastern Oklahoma forever,” Drummond said. 

Drummond said he wants the agreement to require poultry producers to reduce phosphorus pollution and pay for independent water quality testing.

Neither Simmons Foods nor Tyson Foods representatives responded to messages from The Frontier seeking comment.

No public notice requirements

Even the tiny legal notice Strang residents found in the newspaper —  for an environmental impact study on the new poultry farm required for a federal agricultural loan — contained incorrect information about where to send public comments.

Most residents have never dealt with an issue like this before, and have been stymied by bureaucracy and a lack of information said Rex Wood, a local landowner near the Strang property,

“I don’t know what to do. I shouldn’t have to. When they take our money, our taxes, these agencies are supposed to be overseeing and doing the best for us,” Wood said. “We’re not a bunch of backwoods people who don’t know all this sort of stuff. I’m just saying we don’t know the strategy and finesse within the law to govern that sort of stuff. We just expect it all to be taken care of — our health, the air, the ground, the water.”

Residents began gathering signatures on a petition to stop the poultry farm from moving in, but only then learned that the address for correspondence in the legal notice was incorrect, said  Halle Million, who owns a home and ranch neighboring the proposed site. 

“We’re not sure what happened to all of our correspondence,” Million said. “We’re kind of wondering if anyone thinks we really care, because we do.”

Residents said they have reached out to some elected officials, but have yet to hear any concrete solutions, and said they feel that the state’s current system is heavily skewed in favor of the large poultry companies.

Strang’s representative in the state House of Representatives, Rep. Josh West, R-Grove, works as an executive at Simmons Foods, the integrator for the poultry operation planned in Strang. West did not return phone messages from The Frontier seeking comment.

The state Agriculture Department approved a license for the company Cung Poultry to raise chickens at the Strang site in January, before neighboring property owners knew about the plans. Owner Lydia Cung told The Frontier that neither she nor her husband have spoken with neighbors about the planned farm. A land sale for the farm hasn’t been finalized yet, but she anticipates construction will begin in April or May. She and her husband also plan to build a house on the site. 

Cung said she and her husband, who already own one poultry feeding operation near Wyandotte, are following all legal and environmental requirements.

“I don’t think this will impact the environment and the creek,” Cung said.

Neighbors organize

Without any state public notice requirements, residents in nearby Delaware and Adair counties have filed several pending lawsuits to halt poultry farm expansion. The local environmental group Spring Creek Coalition has a pending lawsuit against the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry, seeking to require the agency to provide notice to nearby landowners before a poultry operation moves. The lawsuit claims that the state agency has failed to meet its statutory obligations to ensure the poultry operations are not degrading the environment.

The Spring Creek Coalition claims the state Agriculture Department should treat the poultry feeding operations it licenses as more intensive, industrial-scale farms, which are subject to stricter environmental monitoring and enforcement, as well as federal public notice requirements to nearby landowners. 

Any change to allow for landowner notifications and public comment through the state Agriculture Department would likely have to come from a change in state law through the Oklahoma Legislature, said Lee Benson, a spokesman for the agency. 

“Simply, it comes down to the Legislature has not required notifications to landowners. And so, that’s simply it. If the Legislature were to pass a law that made that requirement, things would be different and we would have to regulate it in a different way,” Benson said. 

Benson said Oklahoma has strengthened rules on poultry farms in recent years, enacting  legislation to require farms to submit plans on how they will dispose of chicken litter. The agency is also in the process of implementing a rule to require poultry operations to submit the plans within one year of applying for a license, he said. Currently, there is no deadline.

Watching the process play out over the last few years has been alarming and disheartening, said Pam Kingfisher, co-founder of the local environmental group Green Country Guardians, which has fought against the proliferation of poultry farms. She blames state regulators for a lack of enforcement. 

“They can sit in their little office in Oklahoma City and read their handbooks, but we’re out here smelling this shit and living with it,” Kingfisher said. “Our creeks are dead. They are full of floating green algae now.” 

Some residents have had success in their efforts to fight poultry, though there is still pushback by state officials.

In September 2022, a Delaware County judge issued a ruling in favor of a neighbor, who sued one of the poultry farms and the Oklahoma Water Resources Board. The judge ruled that the state agency did not consider whether issuing water well permits would cause pollution to surface and groundwater.

This legislative session, Rep. David Hardin, R-Stilwell, whose district includes Delaware, Adair, Cherokee and Mayes counties, introduced House Bill 2053, which would make challenging water well permits for poultry operations more difficult and in some cases require the challengers to pay legal and other fees to the poultry operator. Hardin’s wife Lorri Hardin, a former Oklahoma Department of Agriculture employee, was contracted with Simmons Foods until March 2021 and helped create state-required poultry litter plans for many farms that have moved to Oklahoma, records show. David Hardin did not return phone messages from The Frontier seeking comment.

A settlement more than a decade in the making 

Since the 2010 federal trial in Oklahoma’s lawsuit against poultry processors, the state and poultry industry have taken some steps to reduce phosphorus pollution, such as hauling chicken litter out of the Illinois River Watershed to be spread on fields for fertilizer. Water monitors have noticed a decrease in phosphorus loading in the watershed in recent years, although levels still remain above the legal threshold set by Oklahoma.

But there’s still more work to be done, Drummond said. 

“There’s still some actions that the poultry industry needs to take because when there’s heavy rains, still there is leaching of phosphorus into the waters,” Drummond said.

In January, nearly 13 years after the trial, U.S. District Judge Gregory Frizzell issued a 219-page ruling, finding in favor of the state.

Under Frizzell’s ruling, the state and poultry companies have until March 17 to reach an agreement and Frizzell will enter his own judgment if no deal has been made. 

-Frontier reporter Reese Gorman contributed to this report. 

The post In Oklahoma, neighbors are still blindsided when poultry mega-farms move in appeared first on The Frontier.

Read the full story here.

1. The city of Miami, Okla., has experienced chronic flooding for decades. Over the past 20 years, flooding in the Miami area has become more frequent and average flood levels higher, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

2. Federal archive documents The Frontier obtained from a Miami city engineer show that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was aware of flooding caused by a backwater effect from Grand Lake since at least the early 1940s. In 1957, the Corps of Engineers recommended that if property in the Miami area was flooded, the owners should be paid for damages, rather than the government buying additional land because it would be cheaper, the records show. 

3. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which issues licenses to operate Pensacola Dam, previously had the power to limit Grand Lake’s water level. But U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe authored legislation in 2020 that stripped the agency of that power once the state-run Grand River Dam Authority gets a new license. Inhofe’s legislation also prevented the federal regulator from requiring the Grand River Dam Authority to obtain flood easements or buy additional land from property owners outside of the project’s current boundaries, even if they are prone to flooding. Under its pending license application the Grand River Dam Authority states it will keep the lake level between three feet below flood stage up to flood stage year-round.

4. Miami city officials, the Miami Tribe and a local environmental group, asked federal authorities to require the Grand River Dam Authority to study possibly heavy-metal contaminated sediment downstream from Tar Creek, which flows into the Neosho River and Grand Lake. The tribe’s monitoring has also shown elevated levels of heavy metals in the flora and fauna in the area. The Grand River Dam Authority opposed the study, even though it had the support of multiple state and federal agencies and area tribes. The Grand River Dam Authority claims the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency should be responsible for any future studies on pollution from Tar Creek. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has not yet approved any further study on contaminated sediment.

5. In January 2022, a federal appeals court in Washington D.C issued a scathing order, requiring the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to consider evidence the city of Miami says it has that flooding upstream is caused by Grand Lake and the Pensacola Dam, determine what the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers plays in flooding and interpret Inhofe’s 2020 legislation.  

The post Five things to know about flooding upstream from Grand Lake  appeared first on The Frontier.

In spring 2019, Miami, Okla., business owner Jim Nott watched as the nearby Neosho River once again left its banks and began creeping toward his South Main Street grocery store.

Nott, who has owned Nott’s Grocery in the northeastern Oklahoma town since 1975, has seen flood waters threaten the business several times over the years. A 2007 flood caused water damage that took him months to repair. Nott and other flood victims sued the Grand River Dam Authority, the state agency that oversees nearby Grand Lake, after the 2007 flood in a case that is still ongoing. More than 600 homes in Miami were damaged, 236 of which were completely destroyed, according to the city. 

Nott was ready in 2019, and put sandbags and plywood around the store to prevent new damage. Flooding is an inevitability that he likens to “living next to a volcano,” but he blames the Grand River Dam Authority for rising water levels at Grand Lake that he believes have contributed to the problem. 

“Hell, that’s their job — to manage the water correctly,” he said.

Flooding has long plagued Miami, which sits just north of the confluence of the Neosho River, the highly contaminated Tar Creek and Spring River. The rivers meet to form Grand Lake, a playground for Oklahoma’s monied and powerful. Multi-million dollar vacation homes and other properties dot the shoreline.

Higher lake levels usually mean better conditions for hydroelectric power generation, boating, water skiing and fishing for Grand Lake’s property owners. GRDA is a non-appropriated state agency mostly funded through the sale of power.

But Miami officials say it has left water nowhere to go but upstream after storms, flooding the town. The Grand River Dam Authority claims lake levels don’t affect flooding upstream. But David Williams, chief of the hydrology and hydraulics branch of the Corp of Engineers’ Tulsa division, said the agency is aware of backwater effects in the upper reaches of Grand Lake from a variety of complex factors.

And as far back as the 1940s, federal officials were concerned the dam was causing backwater flooding near Miami, records show. Some also place blame on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which oversees releases from the lake when it reaches flood stage. 

Federal regulators are now weighing what role the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers plays in preventing flooding at Grand Lake and whether state authorities bear any responsibility for the flooding in Miami. 

Over the years, the Grand River Dam Authority has successfully sought federal approval to gradually raise the water level of Grand Lake from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which licenses dams around the country. Now, Pensacola Dam is currently undergoing the years-long relicensing process, and city officials, as well as other groups and tribes in the Miami area, have called for the commission to take a harder look at the relationship between the dam and flooding in the area.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission once had the power to limit Grand Lake water levels but the agency’s authority was diminished after U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe inserted a rider into a 2020 defense bill to limit the agency’s ability to regulate the lake’s level and prevent it from requiring the Grand River Dam Authority to obtain flood easements or buy additional land from property owners outside of the project’s current boundaries, even if they are prone to flooding. 

Inhofe’s bill also  freed the Grand River Dam Authority to keep lake levels between three feet below flood stage and just under the lake’s flood level year-round after it obtains a new license from federal regulators.

Inhofe and his wife own property valued at more than $2.2 million at Grand Lake, according to county estimates. Other high-profile property owners around the lake include healthcare technology billionaire Clifford Illig, country music star Toby Keith and former Gov. Mary Fallin.

Inhofe, who retired on Jan. 3, did not respond to questions from The Frontier.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission used Inhofe’s bill to reject the City of Miami’s request for the Grand River Dam Authority to compensate flooded property owners. A federal appeals court has since ordered the regulatory commission to reconsider and a new decision is pending. 

The chronic flooding has hampered the town’s efforts to bring in new businesses and required some homeowners to purchase flood insurance, city leaders said. Residents and businesses who have been flooded repeatedly are either taking federal buyouts from the Federal Emergency Management Administration or just trying to sell their properties.

“It’s killing our town. It hurts our tribes, our schools, our businesses,” said Miami spokeswoman Melinda Stotts. “People here are just welcoming. They’re tough. They’re used to this stuff. And they love their community. But who wants to deal with this all the time?”

Miami’s population has declined by about 6% since 2000 about 13,000 residents, according to the U.S. Census estimates. Nearly a quarter of the population lives below the poverty line.  

“Everybody here likes to go to the lake and swim and have fun and do all those things,” said Bo Reese, city manager for Miami. “But our houses go under and our town is dying.”

Area tribes including the Quapaw and Seneca-Cayuga nations, also say some of their ceremonial grounds and cultural sites have been inundated by flood waters because of the Grand River Dam Authority’s management. 

Over the last two decades, flooding at the main tributaries of Grand Lake has become more frequent and the waters are higher on average, according to data from the National Weather Service.

Miami city leaders say they worry higher lake levels will bring more floodwaters that threaten to wipe out the town. City and area tribal leaders have also raised concerns about pollution from heavy metals flowing from old mining operations upstream, but the Grand River Dam Authority has fought efforts for further study, saying the matter falls under the jurisdiction of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Dan Sullivan, CEO of the Grand River Dam Authority, said extensive studies commissioned by the agency show lake levels have little material impact on flooding upstream in Miami. But city officials commissioned their own studies they say disprove that claim. 

“It’s a very emotional thing to get your home flooded. I have not personally experienced that, but I know people who have, so I understand that, certainly on a human level,” Sullivan said. “But I think there has been a lot of energy spent looking in the wrong direction and not looking at what the facts show.”

Land for water

In a once-thriving neighborhood in west-central Miami, a frisbee golf park sits among the remaining houses. Several homes have for sale signs out front or have already been bought out because of flooding, ready to be demolished.

Similar flood buyouts have played out in other Miami neighborhoods and main thoroughfares, leaving empty lots or parks where houses and businesses once stood. 

Once a full buyout occurs, the property cannot be built on again. 

Miami’s fairgrounds, a city park and community swimming pool, once considered one of the largest in the state, are regularly inundated with flood water from the nearby Neosho River, making them unusable for weeks at a time, Stotts said. 

With no resolution in sight, the city has made efforts to begin shifting any new development further away from the river. But there is only so much land that can be used for development, and the city’s coffers are not flush with cash, Stotts said.

The Grand River Dam Authority and, to a lesser extent, the federal government purchased much of the land that was expected to be flooded to make Grand Lake in the 1930s and 1940s. But the purchases weren’t adequate to prevent surrounding communities from future flooding, said Jack Dalrymple, Miami’s city engineer. 

Federal documents Dalyrmple provided to The Frontier show that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was aware of the danger of flooding upstream from the dam since at least 1942 and a consultant recommended buying out land owners in Miami.  

Archived documents from the Corps of Engineers from 1957 show the agency recommended that Miami-area property owners be paid for damages if flooding occurred, rather than the federal government proactively buying additional land, because it would be cheaper.

Sullivan said he believes federal authorities should purchase more land or easements, but it could come with major drawbacks for Miami. Land buyouts would kill any chances for future development and could decimate the town. 

While Parker said previous city leaders have unsuccessfully tried negotiating with the Grand River Dam Authority to work out a solution for the town’s flooding, he had hoped he would be able to reach a deal shortly after being elected.

“They all tried the same thing I tried. GRDA does not want to fix this because it doesn’t benefit them financially,” he said. 

Sullivan said he understands the frustration of some of the residents, but that the anger is misplaced.

“It’s a very emotional thing to get your home flooded. I have not personally experienced that, but I know people who have, so I understand that, certainly on a human level,” Sullivan said. “But I think there has been a lot of energy spent looking in the wrong direction and not looking at what the facts show.”

Brannen Parrish, public affairs specialist for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Tulsa district, said Grand Lake is considered a state reservoir, and the only jurisdiction the Corps has over the dam is ordering water releases once the lake level at the dam gets to flood stage. 

While the Corps is not opposed to acquiring additional easements or land to address the flooding issue, it cannot do so without Congressional approval and funding to make those buys, an agency official said. 

The Corps is currently working with the city of Miami to identify flood-prone areas and evaluate mitigation strategies.

The exact role the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers plays on Grand Lake is a question the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is currently considering. In January 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia issued a ruling in favor of the city of Miami, ordering the federal regulator to determine what role the Corps plays in preventing flooding and whether the Grand River Dam bears any responsibility for the flooding in Miami.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has yet to issue a subsequent ruling in response to the court order.

Water rising

Flood water from the Neosho River forced Steve and Terri Barnes to flee their home just west of Miami and the Neosho River in 2007. When Steve Barnes later returned on a flat-bottom boat, he found that water had almost completely engulfed his home. 

For the next 18 months, the Barnes lived in a small FEMA trailer nearby while they worked to restore the house. The ceiling and roof were the only things that didn’t have to be replaced or repaired, they said.

The Barnes could not afford flood insurance at the time, but FEMA was able to provide them with one-time funding to repair their home. Floodwater crept across the surrounding pastures toward the Barnes’ home again in 2019, but luckily stopped rising before it got to their home. 

“Flood insurance is outrageous. There’s no way we can afford it. We would have to rob a bank or something,” Terri Barnes said.

Like other residents in the Miami area, they feel that Grand River Dam Authority has not been forthright about flooding risks associated with the dam.

“They say there’s no backwater effect. I don’t believe them,” Steve Barnes said.

Bo Reese, Miami’s city manager, said promises from the dam’s original engineer in 1938 to lower the lake levels in advance of heavy rain and flooding upstream were not kept, and that the Grand River Dam Authority has an incentive to keep the lake levels high for better electrical generation.

In response, Sullivan said Grand River Dam Authority’s plan for higher lake levels will not cause harm upstream and will also benefit its utility customers and recreation on Grand Lake.

Residents and city officials have also said they are concerned about another effect of the flooding and the dam’s possible impact on the river — sediment buildup.

Norman Hildebrand Jr., second chief of the Wyandotte Nation, said he has watched over the years as streams flowing into the Neosho and Spring rivers have become impassable by boat due to sediment build up, and as structures that once extended into deeper water have been swallowed by sediment.

“Anytime you stop the flow of that much water, you’re going to have sediment,” Hildebrand said. 

Tar Creek, a stream that is contaminated with heavy metals from mining waste, flows through Miami into the Neosho. 

City officials and the Miami Tribe, which has lands that border Kansas in Ottawa County, asked federal authorities to require the Grand River Dam Authority to study contaminated sediment downstream from Tar Creek. The tribe’s monitoring has also shown elevated levels of heavy metals in the flora and fauna in the area.

But The Grand River Dam Authority opposed the study, even though it had the support of multiple state and federal agencies and area tribes. The agency claims the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency should be responsible for any future studies on pollution.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commision has not yet approved any further study on contaminated sediment.

Vacant lots in Miami while Grand Lake real estate market booms

As a teenager in the 1980s, Miami Mayor Bless Parker lived in the town’s long-since vanished Eastgate neighborhood.

Then the flood of February of 1985 hit, inundating Eastgate with water from the Neosho River and a nearby sewage lagoon. At the Parker house, the water got up to 3 feet and 4 inches, photographs from the time show. His mother, Margaret Parker-Anderson, was livid. She painted a black line around the house at the water line, wrote the date and water level on the house, and on a nearby shed wrote “Doesn’t flood Hell.”

“They sold these houses to everybody and told them it didn’t flood,” Parker-Anderson said.

Today, there’s nothing but tall native grass where rows of family homes once stood in Eastgate after Federal Emergency Management Agency buyouts in 2008 and 2009. The government purchased and razed homes after flood water repeatedly inundated the community.
Meanwhile, real estate values downstream on Grand Lake are white-hot. One real estate firm ranked Grand Lake as fourth in its national Hot Lakes list for 2023, with an average home listing price of $449,000.

The post ‘It will kill our town.’ Residents upstream from Grand Lake worry more flooding could be headed their way appeared first on The Frontier.

Hofmeister and Stitt shared the stage for the first time in the lead-up to next month’s general election at the Petroleum Alliance candidate forum on Wednesday, where the discussion centered on energy policy.

During the event, Stitt took shots at Biden and what he referred to as the President’s “failed” energy policies. Hofmeister took a similar path, criticizing Biden and his “rhetoric.”

“We need more energy not less,” Hofmeister said. “I am very concerned about the rhetoric that we hear from the Biden administration.”

Not making an enemy of the oil and gas industry is “huge,” said Jackson Lisle, a pollster at Amber Integrated, an Oklahoma City-based political consulting firm. 

The oil and gas industry accounts for over 90,000 jobs in the state, Lisle said. With the importance of the industry in Oklahoma, and with the economy teetering, it would likely be harmful for candidates to appear to be anti oil-and-gas, Lisle told The Frontier.

According to a recent poll by Amber Integrated, 32% of voters said the economy and inflation was the most important issue to them.

“Every candidate has to talk about what they’re going to do and how it is best for Oklahomans, especially when you’re dealing with people’s livelihoods,” he said.

Hofmeister continued Wednesday, saying both Biden and Stitt “have not done enough” when it comes to advancing energy independence, referencing the “hundreds of wells that are not online” and the lack of a “comprehensive energy plan” for the next time Oklahoma experiences a polar vortex.

Many of Hofmeister’s views are contrary to the views of the national Democratic party, which seeks to cut back significantly on emissions and scale down America’s production of oil and natural gas while moving to cleaner alternatives and providing clean energy tax incentives and increasing regulation. But, despite the party’s shift towards net zero emissions and clean energy, Hofmeister isn’t convinced those exist.

“We know there’s no such thing as zero emission energy. Think about electric cars, zero-emission cars, they have emissions when they’re made, when they’re transported, when they’re shipped,” Hofmeister said. “… When we think about clean energy or dirty energy there is no such thing. There is nothing clean about not having access to energy 24/7.”

Hofmeister also expressed support for energy independence, saying that “we must stand up for the fact that American energy independence is American safety and security.”

“We know that this industry, the energy sector, has been under attack and I empathize. You are key in keeping our state economy moving forward and you cannot be villainized or demonized,” she said.

These comments from Hofmeister came the same day Stitt released his first attack ad, attempting to tie her to Biden’s energy policies. In the ad, the narrator says that “Joe Biden is crushing the oil and gas industry, and he has an accomplice in Oklahoma — Joy Hofmeister.”

The ad references the fact that in 2018 Hofmeister supported a gross production tax increase on oil and gas in order to help raise teacher pay amid the historic teacher walkout.

“The recent ad claiming I favor Joe Biden’s energy policy and would join in attacks on Oklahoma’s oil and gas industry is false,” she said in a statement. “If Stitt attacks me for working with energy leaders back in 2018 to raise teacher pay, then he must also attack the Republican majority in the state legislature who were lockstep with the proposal — which helped give our kids the support they needed.”

Despite Hofmeister’s critiques of Biden and attempts to distance herself from the President, Stitt said he still does not feel that it will be difficult to tie her to the president because “​​she joined Biden’s party” and Democrats all “vote in lockstep” with him.

Biden is not popular in Oklahoma, a state where all 77 counties voted for former President Donald Trump in 2020. A recent SoonerPoll showed only 39.3% of Oklahomans have a favorable view of the President and 58.8% have an unfavorable view of him.

The oil and gas industry is a dominant force in Oklahoma as the state is the third largest provider of natural gas in the U.S, according to the Oklahoma Commerce Department, and the industry brings in billions of dollars each year for the state.

While none of the major energy corporations or organizations have endorsed a candidate in the race, some have donated thousands to Stitt’s campaign during this election including Chesapeake Energy Corporation’s PAC, Marathon Petroleum PAC, The Petroleum Alliance PAC and Continental Resources PAC. 

None of those organizations’ PACs have given to Hofmeister.

The post When it comes to energy policy, Hofmeister distances herself from Biden appeared first on The Frontier.