Environmental Management

By Michael Patton, Land Legacy

Tulsa is filled with environmental challenges and opportunities. Like most major U.S. cities, challenges are found in providing drinking water, maintaining reliable infrastructure, and even mobilizing citizens to act on particular days that require action. Tulsa did well in 2022 and continues to set a standard for environmental management in local and surrounding communities.

Tulsa provides great water from a combination of Spavinaw, Eucha and Oologah lakes, in addition to having contracts to obtain raw water from Lake Hudson. These different watersheds are abundant, and the City of Tulsa has built and paid for waterlines as large as 72 inches in diameter. There are two storage lakes within the city limits that contain another 3.2 billion gallons of raw water. Water capacity is wonderful for the some 500,000 people in the city limits and select suburban areas that contract with Tulsa to provide drinking water. The two water treatment plants also have great capacity; the Mohawk plant can treat 100 million gallons and the A.B. Jewell plant can treat 120 million gallons per day. This is almost double the capacity of the average daily usage of 102 million gallons, and well above the 183 million gallons per day average for the highest usage month of July. The City of Tulsa had no violations of any EPA rules this past year. Violations can come from many sources: erosion, runoff, corrosion of pipes, and even waterfowl in the lakes.

Maintaining reliable infrastructure can be quite a challenge for a community. Tulsa voters have been very supportive when asked to fund improvements for infrastructure. In 2022, many of those improvements came to fruition or made significant progress. Tulsans funded levee improvements as well as a low-water dam along the river, new trails in east and west Tulsa, and new improvements to the city-owned facilities at the airport. The capital budget for the year includes $68 million for roads, $58 million for water system improvements, and $30 million for sewer improvements among others for a total of $337 million capital improvements appropriations in the current budget.

The most visible of the improvements is a new, iconic pedestrian bridge being built over the Arkansas River. Dubbed Williams Crossing, the 18 foot-wide, 1,440-foot-long bridge was partially funded by $15 million of approved sales tax dollars. Local companies and foundations assisted with private funding, raising almost an additional $20 million. The bridge is expected to open in 2023.

The largest challenge for Tulsa last year was air quality. While Tulsa has avoided the “dirty air” list of communities (most of the large cities in the region are in non-attainment), each year can bring a different challenge. 2022 was tough trying to manage normal summer days. Tulsa had no exceedances in 2020 and three days of high levels in 2021. However, 2022 showed 12 days with high ozone levels — spanning from March to mid-October. These days had almost no wind, and transport issues contributed to bringing in pollution from other areas. Violations were just slightly over the current newer lower limits. The rules use a three-year rolling average of your worst days and Tulsa is still more than 4% below the regulatory number. Citizens avoided extra driving trips on ozone alert days and small engine devices like mower usage was postponed and used more efficiently on windy days. Tulsa Transit offered free bus rides from the middle of July until the middle of September as a way to help the community improve air quality.

These actions and programs help define how Tulsa addresses the challenges and opportunities of environmental management. Tulsa has invested in water programs and continues to fund necessary improvements to help keep the city’s water pristine and abundant. When Tulsa is faced with potentially unhealthy air quality, citizens continually step up and local leaders provide additional incentives. These actions, from all segments of the community, help Tulsa remain a leader in environmental management.