A Critical Look at the Proposed Arkansas River Infrastructure Development

[sgrizzle]

Is there anyway to NOT have moving parts on this dam?    It just sounds like someone is trying to sell Tulsa a monorail...   The engineers and salesmen get rich, and the city gets stuck with the maintenance nightmare.

Having a non-moving dam is why they are having to go out and clear it about every year.

[Vision 2025]

Is there anyway to NOT have moving parts on this dam?    It just sounds like someone is trying to sell Tulsa a monorail...   The engineers and salesmen get rich, and the city gets stuck with the maintenance nightmare.

The gates consist of a curved steel section hinged at the bottom and actuated by a HEAVY duty air bladder that is covered by the gate when down. That's about as low maintenance, low failure rate as you can get.  No hydraulic cylinders in vaults, or hoists to fail, just blowers, simple valves, piping, bladders, and controls all for a dramatically less maintenance intensive installation than what Zink or the OC River presently have.

[carltonplace]

Hats off to our city councilors for listening to their communities and altering the plan. I think we are getting closer to something I would support.

[swake]

Hats off to our city councilors for listening to their communities and altering the plan. I think we are getting closer to something I would support.

I will supported it, but I would like to see The Creek Nation put in some money.

[DowntownDan]

Tulsa should pay to replace Zink.  I am convinced by Bynum's presentation that Sand Springs is desirable because it helps to keep Zink at regular levels, but if it gets Zink replaced, then I guess I'm find with scrapping Sand Springs.  I really don't care about south of Zink.  If Jenks/Creeks want water, they can pay for it.  I'd be okay if Tulsa chipped in, but the majority should be on Jenks and Creeks.  Never understood why Bixby needed a dam.

[TeeDub]

The gates consist of a curved steel section hinged at the bottom and actuated by a HEAVY duty air bladder that is covered by the gate when down. That's about as low maintenance, low failure rate as you can get.  No hydraulic cylinders in vaults, or hoists to fail, just blowers, simple valves, piping, bladders, and controls all for a dramatically less maintenance intensive installation than what Zink or the OC River presently have.

The one in Tempe was heavy duty too...   You know how that went.

Having a non-moving dam is why they are having to go out and clear it about every year.

That is called a dam.   Every dam will allow silt to drop, it doesn't matter if it moves or doesn't move.

[Vision 2025]

The one in Tempe was heavy duty too...   You know how that went.

Yes I do (surf's up) but all joking aside that was a totally different design (interestingly, that is the design which was proposed here in the 60's report recommending inflatable dams) that is being replaced with the same gate design currently proposed for the Arkansas.

[Conan71]

That's just the perception I have from the time...the old dam was a little bit downstream, IIRC, and there was always somebody drowning around that thing (not always...just once in a while, but perception is many more than now).  The Zink dam has not been bad - seems like there aren't very many die there, but maybe I have become "deaf" to the events.  Could we be getting smarter around dangerous objects??   

I don't recall any dam downstream of the current location of the Zink dam, when was that in place?  I remember the Sand Springs drowning machine er LWD.

[heironymouspasparagus]

I don't recall any dam downstream of the current location of the Zink dam, when was that in place?  I remember the Sand Springs drowning machine er LWD.

May have been Sand Springs...and may also be thinking of some of the levees...

[Stanley1]

I will supported it, but I would like to see The Creek Nation put in some money.

I think they will.

[DTowner]

I think they will.

That is not exactly a winning campaign slogan.  The Creek Nation stands to gain as much or more than anyone from the Jenks dam.  Playing coy about its contribution will hurt the chances of any dam package passing.

[Tulsasaurus Rex]

Who needs low-water dams in Arkansas River? It's turbine time

Remember Tulsa's Leadership Vision?

I didn't.

But then I got wind of the group's Friday morning meeting at the Southern Hills Marriott.

So I showed up and there was Terry Simonson and Bill Masterson and Howard Barnett and Sharon King-Davis and several other movers and shakers.

As Simonson, who founded the organization in 2013, said before the meeting, "these are people who get things done."

The private, nonprofit group of 32 people meets regularly to discuss topics of import in the city, including the possible consolidation of the city and county park systems.

They've also been kicking around another hot topic: how to get a permanent stream of water within the banks of the Arkansas River.

The Arkansas River Infrastructure Task Force is looking to accomplish that through the construction of new low-water dams and the modification of Zink Dam as well as other water-diversion methods.

Depending on the number of dams built, the price tag could be anywhere from $200 million to $300 million.

Not cheap, in other words.

So at Friday's TLV meeting, engineer Charles Pratt offered his answer to this question posed by Simonson: "Before citizens of Tulsa County are asked to throw nearly one quarter of a billion dollars into the river in order to have more water more often, have we fully explored all methods which will accomplish that?"

Pratt's response: Add small hydro-electronic generators to Keystone Dam.

"If you want it to look like a river" the turbines could accomplish that, Pratt said.

At least two turbines would be installed in the gates of the dam and run 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Each turbine would produce 300 to 500 cubic feet per second of water downstream.

That would provide the roughly 1,000 cfs of water needed to keep a steady flow of H2O in the river, Pratt said. The cost: $4 million to $6 million for each turbine, including installation.

Who needs new dams that would cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build when a couple of turbines costing $12 million installed would do the trick?

Or so the thinking goes.

Unfortunately, not every smart person in the room Friday was thinking like Pratt.

Fritha Ohlson with the U.S. Department of Energy's Southwest Power Administration sat through Pratt's presentation.

Southwest Power uses the water stored in the Keystone Dam to generate power for its customers in several states.

She told TLV that there are at least two problems with Pratt's pitch: running smaller turbines 24/7 would drain the dam's conservation lake at least once every four years and make it impossible to run the dam's two large turbines at 6,000 cfs.

"We have already marketed that (rate) by law," Ohlson said after the meeting. "You would have to get federal legislation" to change that."

Also seated in the hotel conference room Friday was invited guest G.T. Bynum. Bynum, a Tulsa city councilor, is chairman of the River Infrastructure Task Force.

He described the turbine idea as "interesting" but said it was no substitute for using dams to create lakes in the river.

"The reality of the situation is that if you drain enough water from Keystone to fill the corridor through Tulsa, you will empty Keystone Lake in short order," Bynum said. "The aim of our task force is simply to better use the water that is already traveling through our community and to do so with a minimum of reliance on outside government entities."

Simonson, for his part, isn't sold on the dams. He said that, among other things, he's concerned that the existing dam proposal does not do enough to ensure that the water in the river would be suitable for recreational purposes or even human contact.

"First, there has to be enough water and second it has to be better water," Simonson said. "Neither can happen right now."

If this all sound confusing, that's because it is. As Bynum likes to say, there is reason Tulsans have been talking about putting water in the river for half a century and have never got it done.

So Friday, it was turbine time. City officials hope to put a dam proposal on the ballot in April. Who knows what other ideas might surface by then and what Tulsa's Vision Leadership will have to say about the proposal when it is all said and done.

But for now, at least, we know the group is open to listening to other options.

https://www.readfrontier.com/who-needs-low-water-dams-in-arkansas-river-its-turbine-time/

Interesting

[TeeDub]

How long does it take from discharge at the dam until the flow reaches someplace like I-44 and Riverside?


Currently they are generating 24/7, but if Eufaula/Kerr are a normal indication, from noon until 7:30pm is normal.   Then again, that would be water in the river, but not enough to play in.

[Vision 2025]

How long does it take from discharge at the dam until the flow reaches someplace like I-44 and Riverside?


Currently they are generating 24/7, but if Eufaula/Kerr are a normal indication, from noon until 7:30pm is normal.   Then again, that would be water in the river, but not enough to play in.

The comments from The Southwest Power Administration are very challenging (letter included in the Frontier story).


My comments are that:

It only works round the clock in a wet year.

If there is sufficient water available and it was used to fill the release gap between the big hydro releases it could possibly replace the Sand Springs LWD for providing low flow augmentation which will improve water quality and likely save all of the river municipalities considerable $ in the future.

The plan, if implemented, would requires Congressional Authorization (and if that even mentions the location it is considered an Ear Mark and we all know those are bad, right).

Overall it would require a storage reallocation study and those take a very LONG time to complete... and then someone has to pay for the annual storage contract.

In the event the SS LWD does not make the package we will recommend the CORPS study this as an alternative for providing long term low flow augmentation for down stream water quality.

Wish it were easy as it sounds...

[Tulsasaurus Rex]

Groundwork Being Laid for Arkansas River Development in Tulsa

Even without water permanently in the river yet, there are plans in the works to guide Arkansas River development in Tulsa.

One priority in Tulsa's effort to build a series of low-water dams will be connecting the riverfront with downtown. Some of the groundwork is already in place for that.

City Planning Director Dawn Warrick said the Boulder Avenue bridge was built to accommodate transit, including some forms of light rail.

"That is already an asset that's in place that we can build upon and take further," Warrick said. "It connects from downtown — actually, north of downtown — all the way to the river, so it's a great corridor of opportunity for those types of connections."

There's also an unfunded capital improvement plan for connecting parts of Tulsa with the river. Its price tag is about $20 million, and the plan is vague right now.

A steering committee for the Arkansas River task force is working on a system of zoning overlays for areas around the river. There are four tiers: river parks, river adjacent, east of Riverside Drive and properties needing significant public improvement.

"Depending upon the tier and the specific criteria of the overlay, it may speak to lighting standards or landscaping requirements, connections to the river — whether they're pedestrian or just visual," Warrick said. "It could even look at height requirements if there's a need for the development to kind of step down toward the river."

But the overlays will be difficult to adopt under Tulsa's current zoning code.

"The overlay districts would be facilitated by the new zoning code, and we're excited to see what happens with that new code," Warrick said.

The idea is to apply the overlays in addition to zoning codes, creating a uniform guide for development near the river.

http://publicradiotulsa.org/post/groundwork-being-laid-arkansas-river-development-tulsa#stream/0