Kiamichi River Journey: The Importance of Long Creek
Long Creek distributes water into Black Fork Creek, Little River, Big Cedar, Little Cedar, Albion Creek, Wildhorse Creek and many, many more creeks on the Eastern side of the Kiamichi mountain range. Long Creek is located at the planned site of a reservoir covering an area of 599.55 acres with a storage capacity of 68,269 acre-feet of water. Southeast Oklahoma Power Corporation (SEOPC) wants to use Long Creek to fill their upper reservoir, then build a dam 886-foot-long, 282 foothigh concrete rock-filled dam with a 197-foot-high emergency spillway that will release any excess water back into Long Creek. If SEOPC is granted a license to build this hydroelectric pump storage facility using Long Creek. Long Creek and all the many small steams connected to Long Creek’s watershed flowing East to Finley, Snow, One Creek Valley, and Joslin Valley will lose water that flows downstream to the people relying on the creeks for drinking water, irrigation water with the potential demise of well water availability too. Long Creek is the connection to sustainable water from the Kiamichi River watershed’s eastern lands in Push county. Long term, or immediately, the results from this use of Long Creek to fill a reservoir of that size will be realized, then, it will be too little, too late for the people who rely on the streams and small creeks feeding from of Long Creek.
A more serious aspect of this upper reservoir and dam is the “release of water back into Long Creek”. Why would that be a problem? For those who do not realize the issue before us, each of the reservoirs will be treated with chemicals harmful to aquatic life. Chemicals are also used to protect the machinery within the pump storage facility. The machinery, subject to corrosion of metal parts by iron, mercury, salts and other minerals, will need to be treated as well. While the reservoirs are subjected to invasive aquatic life, algae and snails that can clog and damage the pumps, the machinery is subjected to water’s corrosive elements. Long term, the facility must be treated to prevent any problems within in the pump storage facility. Any potential for the treated water to re-enter the river system will potentially contaminate the entire watershed. Chemical treatments are required in hydroelectric facilities for these reasons. Any of this toxic concoctions of chemicals released back into Long Creek will be “treated water”. The list of potential chemicals to be uses are 99% toxic to aquatic life. These facts were brought up before the Oklahoma Water Resources Board(OWRB) during the Tomlin Energy hearings in OKC in their attempt to build a similar facility. It was laughed off by Tomlin’s developer, but it is no laughing matter any more.
Mr. Tse, representing SEOPC, stocks and sells chemicals through his company, Aquarian Capital. One chemical that might be used is bleach. How will bleach change the PH levels in Long Creek, while allowing the spread of toxic water into downstream creeks? The lives of fish, wildlife, plants along the banks,( hyporheic zones), forests, all poisoned by seepage from and release of water from the upper reservoir and rock-filled dam back into Long Creek. This is a serious issue that must be addressed to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) when we file our comments to FERC. Depending on the chemicals used in this facility, it will also adversely affect the Kiamichi River via the lower reservoirs planned by SEOPC’s planned unlined reservoirs, tunnels and dams. In other words, the entire facility has the potential to destroy the ecosystem of the entire Kiamichi River basin.
Another issue to consider is air quality which will be also be affected. Through evaporation, the chosen chemicals may affect our air quality. The list of chemicals gathered for Tomlin was huge with notes on how they each affect the fish, mussels, frogs, etc. We have polluted waters here in Push county, adding any more pollutants into the region becomes potentially life changing on many levels. Along with the chemicals into the atmosphere, there is the dust created from the blasting and tunneling that will affect our air quality as well Again, the results of this will come to too little, too late, the changes permanent and lives changed. We have seen it all across the U.S. Can we not recognize what we are doing to the Earth and change the conversation to invoke laws that protect the sustainability for our lands and waterways? What, then, is Green Energy really?
When one factors in the blasting of a mountainside, the re-channeling of the waterways, the deforestation of the mountain, placing all the crushed rock and rubble that must be removed to another area in Push county(?) allowing the rock debris to enter into the river via runoff, and seeing the complete devastation of the region around Albion and Talihina, is this a Green Energy facility? Who will profit from the diesel and gas need for the removal of rock debris, maintenance of the roads required to be built, the energy needed for the construction of the facilities, the housing of workmen and women, energy to start up the facility when it is completed? Oklahoma will be asked to provide. We will be told that the jobs available will help Push county’s economy, and, if true, it would but at the risk of losing the land and water that sustains Push county. Is this project the best use of the land and water for Oklahoma? Not if all the the power generated is going to Texas and Oklahoma is left with the effects of a precious watershed that will last a lifetime.
More questions, few answers, the presumption that this project could ever be considered green or good for Oklahoma is questionable. These articles are meant to inform the readers of all of the aspects that a project like this brings to the people in Push county. Those of us who want to stay living here have an obligation to speak up to preserve the water and life we all love. The Kiamichi River watershed is our lifeline, let’s protect it. The future of the Kiamichi River watershed will be determined by those who speak for the river