SWPA Works with Partners to Enhance Arkansas River Waterfront in Tulsa

Photo of Zink Lake and Dam construction provided by Crossland Construction Company, Inc.

Photo of Zink Lake and Dam construction provided by Crossland Construction Company, Inc.

Zink Lake and Dam construction progress.

Southwestern Power Administration (Southwestern or SWPA) recently had the opportunity to help bring to completion a new infrastructure improvement project along the Arkansas River in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Coordinating with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) and Crossland Construction Company, Inc. (Crossland), a contractor for the City of Tulsa, Southwestern held back hydropower generation from Keystone Dam on multiple days to accommodate Crossland's construction activities in the Arkansas River as Crossland replaced Tulsa's low-water Zink Dam, part of a larger project to expand recreational opportunities at the city's Zink Lake.

The City of Tulsa bills the voter-approved $48 million project as a way to "revolutionize the way people experience the Arkansas River."

Zink Lake is a 2.5-mile long lake that extends from downtown Tulsa to Tulsa's Gathering Place park, a development for which Southwestern also provided non-generation assistance in 2016 when Crossland modified features along the Zink Lake riverbank.

To facilitate the latest work at Zink Dam, Southwestern entered into an agreement with Crossland in November 2020 that was designed to accommodate multiple requests for no generation at Keystone Dam while also protecting Southwestern's Federal power customers and their energy needs.

According to William Hiller, a Public Utilities Specialist at Southwestern who worked on the agreement with Crossland, this cooperation and balance of needs is a hallmark of how Southwestern approaches competing uses for water resources in its marketing region.

"The agreement involved multiple departments within Southwestern," Hiller says. "We had to consider power purchases, resource scheduling, power sales obligations, and hydrologic forecasting to make sure we could accommodate Crossland's requests for no generation."

Hiller explains that in order to access the riverbed, Crossland intermittently requested to have days without the water flow that would normally occur during times of upstream hydro generation at Keystone. To mitigate risk to Southwestern's Federal power customers, Crossland was required to provide compensation for the cost of any replacement power purchases Southwestern incurred to accommodate those requests.

"Our Division of Resources & Rates estimated the potential costs for power purchases for the duration of the agreement, and Crossland provided advance funding to Southwestern so that we could make power purchases when needed," he says. "An important part of this project for Southwestern was establishing a process for requests from Crossland and the needed accounting and auditing practices to track those requests."

The process worked well for all parties. Crossland asked for ten days of non-generation throughout the term of the agreement, and Southwestern was able to accommodate each requested schedule. Southwestern also coordinated with the Corps to request any needed Special Operations for these suspensions in water releases, as the Corps' operational requirements at Keystone are separate from Southwestern's hydro operations.

Ultimately, as Crossland's work on Zink Dam ended, the power purchase total was less than had been estimated. "Some requested non-generation days at Keystone did not result in the need for power purchases," says Hiller. "On those days, Southwestern was able to schedule replacement power through flood releases elsewhere on our interconnected system, so at the end of the agreement we were actually able to refund the unused portion of Crossland's advance funding."

Thanks to the partnership, the Zink Dam project opened to the public on Labor Day weekend 2024, and Hiller indicates that cooperation was key to its success.

"The Crossland representatives were very easy to work with from the start of the power replacement agreement all the way through closeout, and we are very appreciative of the Corps' efforts to work with us as well," says Hiller. "The improvements Crossland has made at the new Zink Dam look incredible."

About Zink Dam and Zink Lake

Tulsa's Zink Dam was originally constructed in 1982, and its gates had become inoperable over time. For this reason, and with an opportunity to create a taller low-water dam that would allow for increased recreational opportunities in the Arkansas River, the decision was made to create a new Zink Dam that paved the way for a larger Zink Lake. Construction on the project commenced in October 2020.

For more information about Zink Dam and Zink Lake, please visit www.cityoftulsa.org/Zink.