OTA Announces NEW South Extension Location through Norman
Are you in the path?
There was nothing on the OTA’s Tuesday March 4th agenda to prepare the public for the announcement.
So why was the OTA’s meeting room packed to the GILLS with folks… what did THEY know that the public didn’t know?
According to Director Echelle’s Report (started by Trenton January and finished by Echelle) at the end of the the meeting, the design of the proposed southern extension turnpike is being restarted and the location MOVED due to the Bureau of Reclamation fee-title land crossing denial.
Remember that the currently proposed southern extension consists of 19 miles split into seven segmented projects and was erroneously greenlighted by a controversial Oklahoma Supreme Court split decision in August 2023 when the majority failed to adjudicate true legislative intent. Even the OTA admitted that they didn’t have authorization to build it in an email to the governor back in the summer of 2022. The location authorization the OTA argued in Court (Section 1705(e) #28) actually describes the H.E.Bailey Spur, SH9 and SH4.
But due to the Supreme Court obviously failing cartography and deferring the entire majority opinion to the now defunct Chevron Doctrine, the project continued in the following locations.
Current Proposed Southern Extension North of SH9
SET-27001 (East-west connector interchange to Rock Creek which transitions from east of 84th to east of the section line between 72nd and 84th),
SET-27002 (Rock Creek to Alameda a little east of the section line between 72nd and 84th),
SET-27003 (Alameda to SH9 Interchange east of the section line between 72nd and 84th),
However, in December 2022, after the OTA had already spent close to $20 million dollars designing unauthorized turnpike routes, the BoR DENIED the OTA application to cross federal land stating that
"Reclamation has determined that the Proposed Project is not compatible with use of fee title lands acquired for the authorized purposes of the Norman Project, and is therefore not compatible with the public and the United States' interests in the Norman Project."
Figure 1. Bureau of Reclamation map of Lake Thunderbird Watershed and proposed OTA routes through Reclamation Land.
This means that the OTA has to move the route WEST out of the fee-title lands - and because they typically take section lines, that means moving the alignment west at least to between 60th and 72nd or even further to between 48th and 60th to avoid flowage easements.
Current Proposed Southern Extension Route South of SH9
SET-27004 (SH9 to Etowah Interchage east of the section line between 72nd and 84th),
SET-27005 (Etowah to US77 Interchange east of the section line between 72nd and 84th transitioning diagonally southwest to SH77),
SET-27006 (US77 over South Canadian River),
SET-27007 (South Canadian River to I-35 then to SH-74).
NEW Location for Proposed Southern Extension
Watch this five minute announcement by Director Echelle about the southern extension. His speech was written rather cryptically without much detail, but he makes sure to state that the citizens and property owners affected by the turnpikes are his “first priority.”
Eyeroll…… just like he took care of all those poor folks along the Kickapoo, right? If he took care of property owners and we were his “first priority” than why did 44 property owners have to take the OTA to court because the OTA lowballed them by an average of 106%. (more detail on this in the next substack)
His lawyer-prepared speech did not give specifics, but it seemed that they were insinuating on moving the southern extension west because of the Bureau of Reclamation denial from December of 2022.
So is the speech what the OTA is going to claim gave the citizens “ample notice” on the route change?
We obviously understood that speech correctly because right after this meeting was concluded, they sent an email to the city, municipal and state official “stakeholders” telling them they were going to do a re-alignment.
They sent the email to AIM Norman, COMCD, Mayor of Norman, City Manager of Norman, City of Noble, City of Purcell, City of Slaughterville, Cleveland County Commissioners, McClain County Commissioners, Norman Chamber of Commerce, State Senators and Representatives in the area.
“It has been determined that the preliminary alignment has to be adjusted to comply with the Bureau of Reclamation land at Lake Thunderbird.”
“We will use a team of professionals to revisit the SET for opportunities to modify the alignment, likely to the west that does not cross the Bureau of Reclamation fee title land.” ~Joe Echelle
And there you have it.
An entirely new set of property and homeowners will be affected by the turnpike; many of which probably haven’t been paying attention because they thought it wouldn’t affect them.
While we internalize this new “announcement,” sent to our city officials and not the citizens who actually own the property that may be affected, we need your help to alert your neighbors and get them involved in the fight.
Thank you again for your determination and insight. I just do not understand how this reduces traffic as in his speech. No one in any of the cities he mentions will use this to travel to OKC for anything. I am so fearful that until our state representatives and senators find a spine and stand up to this ponsie scheme and waste of money and cost to our citizens, this will not stop. I had high hopes of replacing the 3 judges and that failed. The OKLA Supreme Court has let down the people and not stood against the corrupt taking of land for no beneficial or true reason as describe in our constitution.
What about senate bill 493 and the proposal to move the south extension alignment to the east side of lake thunderbird? It’s a bill at this time but makes clear that the alignment should not go through Norman.