Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Oklahoma senator blocks bid to lower lake’s levels
MIAMI, Okla. — On the shimmering waters of Grand Lake, a popular vacation spot in northeastern Oklahoma, families have spent the summer splashing around in boats, fishing for the lake’s famous bass and enjoying weekend getaways at upscale waterfront homes.
But drive just a few dozen miles north, and the festivity dissolves into fear over flooding in Miami, a city of 13,000 where 1 in 4 people live in poverty. For years, the town has fought a losing battle against the wealthy community at the lake, where high water makes for better boating but leaves little room for overflow when it rains. With heavy rain this year, Miami and local American Indian tribes say they were again left to pay the price when floodwater clogged upstream, damaging their homes, businesses and ceremonial grounds.
Now, this backyard battle has escalated to the halls of Congress, after one of the lake’s residents, Sen. James Inhofe, got involved.
After decades of debate, local leaders pinned their hopes on a rare chance to ask a federal agency to help stop the flooding. But Inhofe — a top Republican who is known to swim and fly planes around the lake, where his family owns a vacation home — quietly introduced legislation in June that would hamstring that agency.
He added the protections in an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act, a military funding bill up for consideration before Congress. As chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Inhofe has wide latitude over provisions included in the 1,700-page bill.
What might be considered typical power politics in Washington came as a shock in Miami, where the mayor said he only learned about the legislation after a reporter for a trade publication called to ask questions. Many in town saw the move as a sign of overreach by a lawmaker. Now, a coalition of city leaders, tribal chiefs and lawyers is scrambling to oppose the proposal by Inhofe, a former mayor of Tulsa and U.S. representative who has held elected office in Oklahoma for decades.
Mayor Rudy Schultz, whose full-time job is running a furniture store company, said he felt like he was in a fight to save his town.
“Your amendment is a direct threat to the health and safety of thousands of your constituents,” Schultz wrote in a letter to Inhofe.
“The fact that you own a home on Grand Lake,” he added, “makes your involvement even more inappropriate.”
Inhofe, who has the support of many on the lake, has long argued for higher water levels to “make the lake a better place for recreation and commerce.” In a statement, he said his proposal would streamline oversight and was “just good policy.”
“Kay and I have been going to our place at Grand Lake since we built it in 1962,” Inhofe said, referring to his wife. “We know nearly everyone in the community and everywhere we go we hear about the need to maintain the lake for its primary purposes of flood control, power generation and recreation.”
DECADES OF FLOODING
Miami sits just off the interstate about 90 miles from Tulsa, in a rural corner of the state where hayfields, cattle ranches and pickups dot the landscape. A billboard welcoming visitors to town features local football hero Steve Owens, who won the Heisman Trophy in 1969. It’s a small symbol of hometown pride from a bygone era, when the city bustled with middle-class families and there were plenty of jobs at a B.F. Goodrich tire plant.
Today, the county — home to nine American Indian tribes, whose members make up about 20% of the population — mostly gets by with factory work and tribal casinos.
But local residents say that flooding has exacerbated the area’s decline.
No one disputes these communities have flooded again and again. But a debate over whether operations at the lake contribute has played out in reams of federal filings and years of lawsuits involving hundreds of residents.
At issue is whether the Pensacola Dam, which was built in 1940 and created the lake, causes a “backwater effect,” a phenomenon that can occur when free-flowing water hits a dam and piles up.
“If you keep the lake levels high,” Neil Grigg, a civil engineering professor at Colorado State University, said, speaking generally, “you don’t have as much storage space available when a flood comes, so that is going to make the flooding upstream worse.”
Miami argues it would not flood so severely if not for the dam. The nonprofit state agency overseeing the dam, the Grand River Dam Authority, disputes a backwater effect exists and denies causing flooding upstream.
As heavy rainstorms become more common with climate change, residents fear the threat is only getting worse.
“I was born and raised here,” said Ethel Cook, 68, chief of the Ottawa Tribe, which had to cancel lunches for tribal elders during the flooding this spring. “I’ve never seen it as bad as it was this year.”
But this year after the most recent flood, local officials saw an opportunity to rectify the crisis: The dam, which generates hydroelectric power, was due for a new license from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for the first time in nearly 30 years.
The officials planned to ask the commission to instruct the Grand River Dam Authority to buy up flooded land, or at least lower the lake before big storms.
A SENATOR STEPS IN
Inhofe’s amendment would limit the commission’s authority over lake levels and flood control. It also says federal land “shall not be considered to be a reservation,” a move tribes say would gut their rights.
“I will vote against him for this,” said Mike Mattingly, a 58-year-old truck driver and registered independent in Miami, who said he spent $30,000 to repair his house after a flood in 2007 and lost Christmas decorations and power tools in the recent flood. “I don’t care if it’s a Republican, Democrat, independent.”
But Joe Harwood, 69, who owns a yacht club and marinas, said he and other business owners on the lake were pleased. “I don’t know any that are not supportive of this,” he said.
Ross Baker, a distinguished professor of political science at Rutgers University, said while the senator’s personal interests at the lake might make the legislation appear “slightly unsavory,” it was unlikely to amount to a serious ethical violation in the Senate. Rather, he said, “the downside for him is more in terms of political embarrassment.”
“In a state that would be politically more competitive than Oklahoma, this could be trouble for Sen. Inhofe,” he said. “But Sen. Inhofe is a local institution.”
In statements, Inhofe and the Grand River Dam Authority said the legislation would clear up confusion about who was in charge of flood control and empower one federal agency — the Army Corps of Engineers — to balance water flow in the region.
The legislation is pending, and Senate and House representatives plan to negotiate a final bill in the coming weeks.