In Tulsa, Stitt recalls 2019 flood as he celebrates $50 million for levee upgrades

“I remember that I’d just been elected not very long, in 2019,” Stitt said Friday in Tulsa. “We had the vice president — if you remember Vice President (Mike) Pence came and visited. And I remember all the National Guard working on the levee to hold it up with sandbags.”

Tulsa County Commissioner Karen Keith, who has been working to get the levee repairs funded for more than a decade, remembered the day, as well.

“He (Stitt) immediately called in the National Guard. And I will tell you, had he not done that, we do not have levees to even fix. The levees would not still be standing, so thank you, again,” Keith said at a signing ceremony for House Bill 2890 in Tulsa on Friday.

The $50 million appropriation leaves Drainage District No. 12, which oversees and operates the levee system, just $2 million shy of the estimated $191 million needed to pay for the project. The other funding sources include $15 million from the county and $124 million from the federal government.

Keith said the cost of the project has risen due to COVID-19 and related factors but that she is confident that the remaining $2 million will be raised.

The levee system protects an estimated $2 billion worth of infrastructure in Sand Springs, west Tulsa and Tulsa County, as well as approximately 50,000 people who live near and behind them, according to local officials. The land includes more than 4,000 commercial, residential and government parcels.

The planned improvements will include new relief wells, water pumps, detention ponds and 13 miles of filtered berms with toe drains. The project also calls for constructing a cutoff wall at the Superfund site in Sand Springs to prevent unsafe materials from leaching into the Arkansas River.

State Rep. Lonnie Sims, R-Jenks, said he was grateful to his colleagues in the Legislature who worked with him to shepherd the bill through the House.

“There’s a lot of great things we do at the Capitol,” Sims said. “But very few times do we get to do something we know for a fact it’s going to save lives and protect our investment for the future.”

House Speaker Pro Tem Kyle Hilbert, R-Bristow, said that with the levee funding the state has now invested $320 million in its Rural Economic Development Fund.

“I will say it’s probably one of the most successful programs that we’ve ever implemented in the Legislature, and you can see the results,” Hilbert said. “We don’t know when the levee is going to get tested again like it did in the governor’s first year in office, but it’s going to happen.

“I mean, look at today. The reason that we’re having this here (at the Tulsa County administrative building) and not on the levee is because it was raining today.”

A name not to be forgotten during the celebration, Hilbert said, is that of former U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe, who played a key role in securing the federal funding for the project.

“We would not be here today without Sen. Inhofe and his efforts on his way out the door,” Hilbert said. “He really hit a home run for Oklahoma.”

State Sen. Roger Thompson, R-Okemah, praised Keith for her work to ensure that lawmakers understood the importance of the funding.

“When Karen Keith came to the Capitol and presented before the full Appropriations Committee, that turned the tide on this particular project in the Senate,” Thompson said.

Keith said after the signing ceremony that the levee project is expected to begin in 12 to 18 months and take up to five years to complete.

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