Oklahoma Turnpike Authority in Norman

DevelopmentEnviroment
Written By Helen Grant
 

I attended the March 3, 2022 Town Hall at CrossPointe Church in Norman, off Highway 9 and 24th Ave. There were well over 400 people in the main room, a reported 150 in the overflow room, another 200+ in the lobby, and a line of cars that stretched all the way down Highway 9. I was there when the vast majority of people in the main room raised their hands when asked who was directly impacted and it was sobering. And what was the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority’s response? They sent Poe & Associates, the engineering firm they allotted $4,960,000 for Program Management, to handle the community outrage. It was Poe & Associates that said the OTA does not have a plan for protecting Lake Thunderbird nor the well water aquifers. And even though Poe & Associates were told environmental studies take 2 years to conduct, it should be a red flag to anyone paying attention that before anyone can even determine where it will be safest to build, the OTA is positioning itself to start buying people out as early as 2023. 

 

Backlit by an Oklahoma sunset right outside the Ward 5 Town Hall.

 

It was also Poe & Associates who reminded the crowd, like clockwork, that the evening of the Town Hall meeting was only Day 9 of a 15-year plan. When someone in the crowd asked when groundbreaking would happen, the Poe & Associates response was that they expected a “groundbreaking moment” in “…5, 6, 7 all the way to 15 years.”

There were many personal stories about the human impact on homes and lives, or, more impersonally, “rooftops”. But especially revealing was the lack of understanding on the ecological side of the equation, which encompasses threatened and endangered species such as birds like the Whooping Crane, Piping Plover, Red Knot, Monarch Butterflies, and fish, like the Red River Shiner and the Peppered Chub. We also have rare geological formations called Rose Rocks, barite-sand rosettes, identified in the path of the turnpike. And organizations, such as WildCare Oklahoma, have said this development will have serious disruptive and irreversible impacts on their operations and wildlife alike. Currently 9 wells have been identified as being impacted by the route, and it is worth noting residential and city wells are likely to be further impacted by runoff pollutants filtering into our aquifers. 

This ecological concern comes at a time when we need to be mindful of our City’s water portfolio and the costs associated with it and new growth as we look to our Councilmembers to do right by current residents in regards to passing appropriate connection fee increases. Those concerned about paying for future water would do well to ask City Council members to not only pass a resolution against the turnpike, like the Norman City Council did in January 1999, but also raise the connection fee from 25%, which covers none of the proposed plans for connection fees, to at least cover Alt. 2, buying more clean drinking water from OKC. It is not the preferred Alternative, as that is Alternative 1, which follows the 2060 Strategic Water Supply Plan, and it includes Lake Thunderbird augmentation, but Alt. 1 would also require buy-in from Midwest City and Del City and we don’t have those municipalities on board yet. Alt. 2 raises the current connection fee from $1,000 to $2,010. To be very clear, 25% means a connection fee of $1,250, which shortchanges everyone but developers and their future customers, the latter are actually the ones who end up paying the connection fee anyway. Norman City Council can vote on March 22nd for this higher, but not unreasonable connection fee, and roll out that in stages over the next 2 years. New development should pay for itself and existing residents should not have to make up the difference. Current residents vote on our water rate increase, which is desperately needed for new meters, disinfection, and pipe replacement and does not cover new expansion, on April 5th. Deadline to register to vote in this election cycle is Friday, March 11th. Deadline to request an absentee ballot is March 21st by 5:00 p.m.

 

Ward 4 Council Member Hall and Ward 4 Candidate Grant document that they both made it inside the Ward 5 Town Hall.

 

Lake Thunderbird is also designated as a Sensitive Water Supply by the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality. And because it is the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority, and not the Oklahoma Department of Transportation, attempting to build a turnpike near a sensitive water supply, it’s troubling to know that OTA will likely not be forced to follow the NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) rules the Federal government would require of an agency, like ODOT, which gets a lot of funding from the Feds, unless Federal land comes into play. Why? Because the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority uses bonds to pay for its projects. OTA will be trying to sell some of those as early as January 2023, even though their director of finance and revenue, Wendy Smith, has said on record that OTA’s credit rating may be impacted given the risk, her quote: “...’We are pragmatic and it is possible that we will be downgraded to A-plus. We understand that this is a possibility as this is a lot of bonds to leverage,’ she said.”

Now is a great time to get neighborhoods to organize together for our common interests. The Neighborhood Alliance of Central Oklahoma works in Norman. Working with that organization now is a good opportunity to identify who future neighborhood Block Captains could be. For example, the man who spoke at the March 3rd Town Hall said he walked 4 neighborhoods and let neighbors know about the Town Hall and OTA plans, which according to him, at least 2 neighborhoods were unaware of anything at all. As some Norman residents work to create a task force opposing the OTA, a complement to that work would be helping neighborhood organizing structures come into being sooner rather than later.

If Norman manages to keep turning out as a networked, united front on this issue, who knows, maybe unprecedented things will happen. Over the last two years we’ve seen how different collectives and grassroots organizations have applied political pressure in ways that have turned heads. Even if you don’t live out in Ward 5, the knock on effect of the Turnpike will have on our environmental issues is bad for all as it will further impair our water quality and threaten the collective enjoyment of our irreplaceable natural resources. It is worth the effort to talk to our friends and neighbors about what a turnpike means for our City and how critical it is to resist the path of destruction.

 

Resolution (R-9899-65) from City Council outlining the reasoning for their alignment preferences. Dated Jan 12, 1999

Point 7 is of interest: “WHEREAS, any proposed Interstate 35 Trade Corridor Bypass and/or an Outer Loop alignment placed between the urbanized core of Norman and Lake Thunderbird would produce the most negative social, economic, and environmental impacts on the citizenry of Norman…”

Resolution No. R-9899-65, Page 2 says: therefore a bypass should go east of Lake Thunderbird, and the City of Norman supports a No-Build option. Dated Jan. 12, 1999

 

Land Acknowledgement

According to indigenous artists, activists, the University of Oklahoma Native American Studies, and websites that map native lands: Norman is located on Caddo, Wichita, Apache, Absentee Shawnee, Kiowa, Kickapoo, and Osage lands. 39 tribal nations dwell in the state of Oklahoma as a result of settler and colonial policies that were designed to assimilate Native peoples. Norman, Oklahoma was also a “Sundown” Town until 1967. The land we occupy has complicated histories and I wish to acknowledge that.

 

I hate to leave off on a dour note. Here is a little Easter Egg. You know it’s going to end up on my playlist. I love the lyrics, and love the band. I saw them during an Austin City Limits Festival in 2013 I covered as a journalist. I saw them as a fan when they played Opolis in 2015.

Helen Grant https://thehelengrant.com
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