WOKA White Water Park

[LandArchPoke]

Pretty big development along the Illinois River. Would love to see more regional collaboration between Tulsa/NWA on projects like this that help build up some of the natural aspects present in the region to help make this area more of an 'outdoors' destination.

https://tulsaworld.com/news/local/construction-to-begin-on-national-caliber-whitewater-park-made-possible-by-oklahoma-arkansas-partnerships-officials/article_9b272fa8-1883-11eb-97e8-5397ef87fd82.html

$33 Million project.

The city of Siloam Springs and Oklahoma-based utility Grand River Dam Authority broke ground Thursday (Oct. 29) on a 30-acre whitewater park on the Illinois River, and the Walton Family Foundation is providing 95% of the money for the project.

The WOKA Whitewater Park will be built at the old spillway of Lake Frances in Oklahoma and near Watts, which is about seven miles southwest of Siloam Springs. The main attraction features a nearly 1,200-foot-long, 100-foot-wide side channel off the Illinois River with eight drop-features offering recreation and waves for kayakers, surfers and tubers of all skill levels, a news release shows. WOKA was formed from a combination of the words water, Oklahoma and Arkansas.

[Conan71]

This is exciting to see!  My wife and I started going over to NWA for bike recreation in 2014 after a suggestion from the cannon_fodders.  We fell in love with Bentonville and Crystal Bridges.  The trails were beautiful to ride then you could go though the museum and have a nice meal or ride around downtown Bentonville.  We also visited Natural Springs State Park east of Springdale- what a cool place that was!

That is such an incredible recreation outlet for people in the Tulsa metro and the region.  There's so much natural beauty and resources, that truly was something that weighed on us before we set out on our New Mexico adventure in 2017.  We settled 25 miles from Eagle Nest Lake, Cimarron Canyon State Park and it's beautiful trails are 13 miles away.  It's 34 miles from Angel Fire and 42 miles from Red River and the Valle Vidal entrance is five miles from our house so we have an abundance of outdoor recreation opportunities but there is still something so special about NE OK an NW Ark.