Oklahoma state parks are falling apart, and legislative funding is delaying inevitable failures

Someone rides a jet ski at Lake Thunderbird State Park. (Photo by Kyle Phillips/For Oklahoma Voice)

Oklahoma lawmakers had the perfect opportunity to hit a homerun by giving the green light to a comprehensive plan designed to fix our ailing state parks.

Instead, they whiffed, and gave everyone who utilizes the parks the big fat “L.”

As a result, our state parks and the millions of people who visit them each year emerged from the session among the biggest losers.

Our Department of Tourism and Recreation officials had proposed an eight-year plan that would invest $350 million to fix our long-neglected parks.

Supporters argue that if properly maintained, our parks should be a tourist attraction not only for Oklahoma residents, but also those living in neighboring states like Texas who often venture here to enjoy our abundance of mountains and lakes. Right now, many of our parks are eyesores due to years of neglect.

To be clear, parks officials weren’t proposing vanity projects — like luxury lakefront cabins, statues paying homage to our leaders or five-star restaurants.

They wanted the funding to fix crumbling infrastructure that has careened from one crisis to the next. There’s a cave-in that’s gone unfixed for at least five years. Cabins that are uninhabitable. Parks with failing sewer systems and gas lines. One park didn’t even have safe drinking water for a time. Another has a water well that could rob a nearby community of water access when it fails.

Lawmakers though seemingly shrugged their shoulders at these potentially catastrophic issues that, left untreated, could sicken or kill someone.

Rather than embracing what appeared to be an inherently reasonable list that prioritized maintenance needs over the next eight years, legislators allocated a fraction of what’s needed.

Just $35 million. That’s 10% of Tourism and Recreation’s proposal.

Of that, our parks will receive $12.5 million the first year and $7.5 million for the next three years.

It’s well short of what it will take to adequately fix and keep up our the most basic systems to make the parks function. Now, half the needed repairs won’t get done.

State officials over the decades have ensured there’s a plethora of parks.

The problem is they love the idea of opening state parks so much, we now have over $1 billion in assets to care for.

And, it seems like everytime we turn around, they’re proposing adding another or pushing back against suggestions that we consolidate.

Even as park officials were unsuccessfully begging for a long-term maintenance plan this session, our tone deaf legislators were plowing ahead with a separate plan to turn Lake Hugo back into a state park. The state transferred ownership of the park in 2013 due to low attendance and budgetary problems.

Thankfully, the bill didn’t make it to the governor’s desk.

We don’t need additional state parks right now.

We can’t even afford to take care of what we have. And, there’s obviously little political appetite to find that funding.

The problem is it would look cool on campaign mailers to tell folks that you opened a state park. It’s less glamorous to tell voters that you paid a fortune to fix a gas line that they’ll probably never see until it explodes due to a lack of maintenance.

Now is perhaps the perfect time for our elected officials to do some soul searching about the future of our parks system.

We’re now at a crossroads.

Our existing state parks – from Black Mesa to Beavers Bend – should be a natural wonder that all residents can enjoy.

They shouldn’t be cesspools of decay and public health hazards.

It’s time to fish or cut bait because one thing is clear: The current philosophy of kicking the can down the road isn’t working anymore and our parks deserve better.

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The post Oklahoma state parks are falling apart, and legislative funding is delaying inevitable failures appeared first on Oklahoma Voice .