FOX23 Investigates: As Zink Lake prepares to open, water testing results not up to date

TULSA, Okla. — In a little more than six weeks, the City of Tulsa's set to open Zink Lake and the recreational flume on the Arkansas River.

As we've told you, they're putting information out about water quality on a dashboard for everyone to see. But as Tulsa's Investigative Reporter Janna Clark found out that info may "not" be so readily available.

When it comes to what's in the Arkansas River, a group of Tulsans called "The Arkansas River Rights coalition" is adamant about giving one piece of advice.

"Do not get in that water," said Ann Marie Beer.

"If you have kids, many of us do, you understand," said Kelsey Royce. "Kids in bodies of water, they get it all over themselves, even teenagers."

They do not think it's safe to kayak in the flume or get in Zink Lake.

"I have a lot of concerns as a parent. It's not going to be safe. I'm unpersuaded by the city's dashboards," Royce said.

The City put out the dashboard at the beginning of the year. FOX23 has told you about daily reports of bacteria called E. Coli, but what you can't find on the front screen, the results from chemical testing.

You have to click around to get to that.

Plus, Janna showed you in June how that info was two months old. When she asked the city about it, they updated the info that same day.

FOX23 checked and it's out of date again. The last time they updated it was May 30. So that means this time, the data is more than six weeks old.

So far, the chemical testing results they have posted, have been favorable.

But engineer Charles Pratt's been researching this topic for years and said the chemical testing the City's doing isn't complex enough to find out what chemicals are actually in the water.

"They're not testing properly for the hydrocarbons and pollutants," Pratt said. "The chemicals going into the river."

"Over the years, It's been heavily documented that that's an impaired waterway. And I have a lot of concerns with regards to the chemicals that are being referenced in there," Beer added. "You know, I'd like to be very positive and hope that one day, they'll get in there and clean that river out like it needs to be cleaned and give it a chance to running like it should. But we've kind of put the horse before the cart or the cart before the horse

The reason this group is so concerned about chemicals is because of Sinclair Refinery that sits on the west side of the river.

The Department of Environmental Quality said under the refinery is historical contamination. The refinery said it's working closely with DEQ to work on clean up. For example, they put a containment cap to keep pollutants from seeping into the river. It's the second one in two years.

"Do we know that what they've done already with the containment caps is going to be good enough to present prevent another spill? Or leakage?" Beer questioned.

Some Tulsans have doubts that people can make sense of the test results on the dashboard.

"Don't think it's appropriate to ask members of the public like myself to bear the burden of the mental load it takes to try to understand the risks we're taking," Royce said.

Based on data from a dashboard, it's just too much.

The City said the water testing is a work in progress and so is the dashboard. They said they're making improvements to all of it by the time the flume opens on Labor Day. They also said that if, at any time, the river water is dangerous, then there will be signs posted saying that.

Janna reached out to the City on Tuesday to ask them about the dashboard information being out of date. The City said they're still manually updating those results and working to figure out how to automate the process. They said they will work to update the dashboard as soon as possible.