Goodbye To Fishing Low Water!

[ColeM.]

http://www.ktul.com/news/stories/0409/615397.html

Tulsa - The dream of water in the Arkansas River all the time will soon become a reality.

The legislature has approved a bill to sell bonds to finance low water dams along the Arkansas River in the Tulsa metro area. Sand Springs and Jenks will get new dams and there is money in the new legislation to improve Tulsa's low water dam.

A river with water flowing year-round is attractive to residents. People love to walk along the river. They love to shop and spend money in the shops that have been built there. And, once built, it's hoped the new low water dams will spur even more development.

On a nice, warm day, there are plenty of people along the Arkansas River. And, more will come when the dams are built.

"It sounds great," says Wayne Nelson. "You'll see people fishing in the river and people walking by the river, looking at the water."

Jenks is no newcomer to development along the Arkansas River. They've been in the business for

"We've shown what river development can do," says Mayor Vic Vreeland. "All we've done is promised one of these days there's going to be water in the river. If you actually put water in the river, it might be scary what happens."

Backers of the new dams say over the next seven years, economic development along the river will be worth more than two-billion dollars and create more than nine-thousand jobs.

Owners of the stores in downtown Jenks say water in the river and development is good for them.

"It provides an excuse for people to cross the bridge coming from Tulsa," says antique store owner James Pearce. "It always seemed to be somewhat of a mental barrier. This gives them an excuse to see what we have to offer."

Already, the promise of water is bringing development to the river. More and more businesses ware finding it's a good place to attract customers. New development went up in Jenks several months ago and more will be announced this summer.

But, it's not just something happening for Jenks.

"We will see that same type of development activity taking place in Tulsa and Sand Springs," Vreeland says.

The Jenks mayor says the dams will be built and this will be a real river in three years.

[Poke 'Em]

The Jenks mayor says the dams will be built and this will be a real river in three years.

Wouldn't that make it more of a real "lake?"

[ColeM.]

Wouldn't that make it more of a real "lake?"

Umm, lake if you use the term loosely. The problem that I am seeing is that when Keystone is generating, the currents in these so called lakes will be so swift, no one will be able to enjoy them. When they are not generating, there will be water in them to make the developers happy. What this is going to do to the striper population, no one knows and the media is skirting the issue about it. I have sent a couple of emails off to the state, to see what they think about the proposed dams. The way I look at it, the low water fishermen, will have to move below the Creek Turnpike to the lowest proposed dam when they are not generating. So this might not hurt anything at all, but I would like to know how the state wildlife officals feel about it.

[Cunningham]

this is a waste. yes we will have to move south to Jenks if we want to fish in a manner relative to what we do now..Will it effect the striper? who knows....no one will say. Will I still have access? Who knows....Will I have a boat ramp? Will this cater to fisherman, the only people who really "use" the dam. Just a bunch of unknows.

I do know this, no one other than the TU rowing team, Tulsa Rowing Club, and myself and maybe one or two other kayakers ever go in above the low water in Zink Lake. Citizens want water to do stuff they don't even do now.

Here is the INCOG site with more info.

http://www.incog.org/ark%20river/default.htm

Umm, lake if you use the term loosely. The problem that I am seeing is that when Keystone is generating, the currents in these so called lakes will be so swift, no one will be able to enjoy them. When they are not generating, there will be water in them to make the developers happy. What this is going to do to the striper population, no one knows and the media is skirting the issue about it. I have sent a couple of emails off to the state, to see what they think about the proposed dams. The way I look at it, the low water fishermen, will have to move below the Creek Turnpike to the lowest proposed dam when they are not generating. So this might not hurt anything at all, but I would like to know how the state wildlife officals feel about it.

[ColeM.]

We are not alone in this! We need to get the media to answer questions that the general public have, not what the developers want us to hear!

I see on the plans a proposed water taxi, oh that sounds so great, I wouldn't want to be on it, when a "city" captain battles 30k cfs waters!

[DaddyO]

It seems to me that the fishing might be pretty good while they are shutting the water down to build the dams. I'm guessing they'll be low water dams like the Zink one. In periods of low flow, it should give us more opportunities to fish other areas. Please don't interpret this as being argumenative, I'm only offering another view. Who knows, the fishing may wind up being better below Jenks than it is at the Zink Dam.

I swear, if TKD doesn't stop releasing all that water, I'm taking my Striper Rod and putting a pink stripe on my Clousers and gonna go there and fish. OOPS... That probably should've been in the Illinois River forum.