Joe Wertz / StateImpact Oklahoma
Jack Barrett, owner of the BDC Gun Room in Shawnee, Okla., shows off a new shotgun model popular with hunters.
Nearly a quarter of a million hunters are set to grab their guns and stalk through Oklahoma’s woods when deer gun season opens the week before Thanksgiving.
But years of drought have taken a toll on wildlife populations in Oklahoma, and the men and women who hunt and fish for them.
But Steven Pruett, president and chief executive officer of Elevation Resources in Midland, Texas says low oil prices haven’t created a crisis situation for most energy companies. If prices collapsed to 2008 levels, when oil was fetching less than $35 dollars a barrel, drillers might be forced to take more drastic steps like shutting down production. But few are predicting crude will fall that much, NPR’s Jeff Brady reports.
Walnut Creek State Park near Prue in Osage County closed for the season on Oct. 1, and might never open again. Walnut Creek is yet another victim of shrinking budgets and changing priorities at the state department of tourism that have meant the closure or transfer of numerous state parks over the last few years.
OETA photographer Tony D’Astoli joined StateImpact’s Logan Layden for Walnut Creek’s final weekend as a state park, and put a visible face on our radio report during The Oklahoma News Report Oct. 23. See above video. Continue Reading
Green MPs / Flickr
A worker installs a rooftop solar panel.
Customers wanting to generate power from small wind turbines and solar panels without being assessed fees rushed to make sure such installations were fully operational by Saturday, Nov. 1.
The deadline was imposed by Senate Bill 1456, which “requires utilities to account for potential costs those customers impose” on electric utilities, The Journal Record‘s Sarah Terry-Cobo reports: Continue Reading
Sandra Ladra in August filed the lawsuit against the operators of Lincoln County water disposal wells, claiming they caused the 5.6-magnitude earthquake that shook near Prague, Okla., in November 2011 “that caused rock from her fireplace to land in her lap and injure her knee,” The Oklahoman’s Adam Wilmoth reports.
Joe Wertz / StateImpact Oklahoma
Rep. Cory Williams, D-Stillwater, questions Secretary of Energy and Environment Michael Teague at an interim study and hearing about earthquakes and disposal well oversight held in October 2014.
Oklahoma’s earthquake surge is unrelenting. The shaking is rattling residents and cracking the foundations of homes.
The quakes have also strained state agencies, which are struggling to keep up with the ongoing swarm while simultaneously developing a longer-term plan to analyze and address factors that might be triggering the earthquakes.
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Logan Layden / StateImpact Oklahoma
Robert Moore, general manager of the Marshall County Water Corporation, addresses a panel on local planning for future droughts at the 35th annual Oklahoma Governor's Water Conference in Oklahoma City Oct. 22.
Drought — and how to deal with it — was the central theme of the annual Oklahoma Governor’s Water Conference last week in Oklahoma City, where water experts and authorities discussed issues ranging from crop management to what Las Vegas can teach Oklahoma about water conservation.
Oklahoma Water Resources Board Executive Director J.D. Strong made the point again this year: The future looks like the past — hotter and drier — and no one should be surprised. Continue Reading
Sonya Song / Flickr
Steel Plant, Anshan, Liaoning, China, February 2009.
In May of last year, it looked like impoverished areas of eastern Oklahoma would be getting a lifeline. Coal mining, once a vital industry there, appeared to be headed for a comeback thanks to booming international demand.
Local residents were excited about the prospect of hundreds of new jobs when StateImpact first visited Heavener, but the mining project has stalled.
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Joe Wertz / StateImpact Oklahoma
Frank Robson, a wind farm opponent and property developer from Claremore, Okla., at an Oct. 21 Senate hearing on tax incentives for the wind industry.
Members of the state Senate Finance Committee heard testimony on Tuesday from the wind industry and a representative of a group of property owners pushing for stricter regulation of wind farms.
The Senate study centered on the cost-benefit of tax credits and incentives used by the wind industry. Supporters said Oklahoma’s incentives attract projects that might otherwise be built in other states with similar wind potential, including sites in Kansas, Nebraska and Texas. Continue Reading
A second public hearing on what role the Corporation Commission should have in regulating the wind energy industry was held Oct. 15, and included discussions about “siting, landowner notification and decommissioning,” the Journal Record reports.
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