Arkansas River

[waterboy]

quote:Originally posted by tim huntzinger

quote:Originally posted by waterboy

Any takers?

It sounded kooky when you first mentioned the channel idea but would that not address the oxygenation issue of additional damsand provide more usable space on the river? Not so kooky.

That's been a couple of years ago. Somewhere I have an artist's rendering. A very simple concept that wasn't really considered.

I'll go a step farther with the locks idea. If they would put a lock on the Jenks dam, and retrofit one on the existing low water dam you could promote trips that started at the Keystone Dam and ended up in the Navigation Channel.

[Conan71]

quote:Originally posted by waterboy

quote:Originally posted by tim huntzinger

quote:Originally posted by waterboy

Any takers?

It sounded kooky when you first mentioned the channel idea but would that not address the oxygenation issue of additional damsand provide more usable space on the river? Not so kooky.

That's been a couple of years ago. Somewhere I have an artist's rendering. A very simple concept that wasn't really considered.

I'll go a step farther with the locks idea. If they would put a lock on the Jenks dam, and retrofit one on the existing low water dam you could promote trips that started at the Keystone Dam and ended up in the Navigation Channel.

Wouldn't that require another dam downstream to keep it navagable all the way to the nav channel through the drier months?

I got an email today that the Jr. rowing club is doing their summer training camp out at the TU Women's boathouse near the Port of Catoosa (they row in the main nav channel).  Looks like flow is going to be up for a good long while since Keystone is w/in 6 ft. of the upper flood pool.

[TulsaFan-inTexas]

quote:Originally posted by tim huntzinger

. . . as long as Mary Anne or Ginger is on board . . .

Mary Ann, preferably.. []

[Townsend]

quote:Originally posted by TulsaFan-inTexas

quote:Originally posted by tim huntzinger

. . . as long as Mary Anne or Ginger is on board . . .

Mary Ann, preferably.. []

...and her sweet sweet coconut banana cream pie

[waterboy]

quote:Originally posted by Conan71

quote:Originally posted by waterboy

quote:Originally posted by tim huntzinger

quote:Originally posted by waterboy

Any takers?

It sounded kooky when you first mentioned the channel idea but would that not address the oxygenation issue of additional damsand provide more usable space on the river? Not so kooky.

That's been a couple of years ago. Somewhere I have an artist's rendering. A very simple concept that wasn't really considered.

I'll go a step farther with the locks idea. If they would put a lock on the Jenks dam, and retrofit one on the existing low water dam you could promote trips that started at the Keystone Dam and ended up in the Navigation Channel.

Wouldn't that require another dam downstream to keep it navagable all the way to the nav channel through the drier months?

I got an email today that the Jr. rowing club is doing their summer training camp out at the TU Women's boathouse near the Port of Catoosa (they row in the main nav channel).  Looks like flow is going to be up for a good long while since Keystone is w/in 6 ft. of the upper flood pool.

With an additional dam at Jenks I think they will find it necessary to release enough that the channel could be navigable for canoes through much of the summer. The trend seems o be for releases farther into the summer.

The corps is really earning their money right now. They can't really lower the nav channel much either until the Mississippi drains off the flooding in the upper midwest.

I'm a Ginger guy myself.

[SXSW]

Man it would be nice someday to be able to boat from inner city Tulsa to the Navigation Channel, and then either up the Verdigris or down to beautiful Kerr Lake (or all the way to the Gulf if you had a few weeks to spare).  I know river cities where you can take powerboats on the river and where there are marinas IN the city like Louisville, Omaha, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, etc.  No reason if we had low water dams with locks all the way to the Navigation Channel that we couldn't see that in Tulsa either.  I realize that would be a lofty goal but we have to start somewhere.  I'd keep a boat on the river if I could go on a day trip up to near Keystone Dam or down by the Concharty Mountains southeast of Bixby, or simply go dock by the Riverwalk or cruise by downtown as the sun sets...

[tim huntzinger]

quote:Originally posted by SXSW

Man it would be nice someday to be able to boat from inner city Tulsa . . .

What is this? You part of that stupidity to get a canal for the Pearljam District linking to the River?

[SXSW]

Inner city meaning the portion of the river that flows through Tulsa right by our midtown and downtown areas.  I don't think there ever was a plan to connect the creek through the Pearl District to the river.  There IS a long-range plan to connect Brookside with the river via Crow Creek though, not sure how that's progressing but it's a cool idea...

[waterboy]

quote:Originally posted by SXSW

Inner city meaning the portion of the river that flows through Tulsa right by our midtown and downtown areas.  I don't think there ever was a plan to connect the creek through the Pearl District to the river.  There IS a long-range plan to connect Brookside with the river via Crow Creek though, not sure how that's progressing but it's a cool idea...

They seem so wary of locks and dams. I wonder if it might be more palatable to mechanically portage a watercraft over the low water dams. Sort of like the rafts on water slides are conveyed up to the top of the slide. A boat and conveyor that are matched to each other and driven by an electric motor could operate with little cost and maintenance year round. It could also be done on a set of rails. Just thinkin.

[Conan71]

quote:Originally posted by SXSW

Inner city meaning the portion of the river that flows through Tulsa right by our midtown and downtown areas.  I don't think there ever was a plan to connect the creek through the Pearl District to the river.  There IS a long-range plan to connect Brookside with the river via Crow Creek though, not sure how that's progressing but it's a cool idea...

Actually last year, when they were starting to ramp up the campaign for the river tax, Michael Bates shared a plan from about 1991 about "re-opening" Elm Creek from the Pearl to the River.  Someone had done a thumbnail study on it back then along with some renderings as I recall.  It was really a cool idea, though probably not overly practical.  It, like Crow Creek, would be more of a "human scale" as Bing Thom would say.

[PonderInc]

About 20 years ago, I was a member of the Tulsa Rowing Club.  Once, a couple of us rowed single sculls up from the West Festival Park area (where the boathouse is now) several miles up the Arkansas River towards Keystone.  

The trick was that you needed high enough water to get upstream from Zink Lake, but not so high you couldn't row against the current.  (I vaguely remember some sort of low concrete barriers that had to be submerged deep enough to float over.  Not dams...just low thingies like the curb on a street?)  Wiggling through all the bridges at 11th Street with lots of eddies and weird currents was an adventure.  

I remember that it was great to "row out of town," into the countryside, but it was gross when we started rowing through that foamy "spooge" stuff that sometimes covers the entire river's surface.  

Not sure, but I think we could have rowed all the way to the Keystone Dam, if we'd had the time/endurance/inclination to do it all against the current.

[Conan71]

quote:Originally posted by PonderInc

About 20 years ago, I was a member of the Tulsa Rowing Club.  Once, a couple of us rowed single sculls up from the West Festival Park area (where the boathouse is now) several miles up the Arkansas River towards Keystone.  

The trick was that you needed high enough water to get upstream from Zink Lake, but not so high you couldn't row against the current.  (I vaguely remember some sort of low concrete barriers that had to be submerged deep enough to float over.  Not dams...just low thingies like the curb on a street?)  Wiggling through all the bridges at 11th Street with lots of eddies and weird currents was an adventure.  

I remember that it was great to "row out of town," into the countryside, but it was gross when we started rowing through that foamy "spooge" stuff that sometimes covers the entire river's surface.  

Not sure, but I think we could have rowed all the way to the Keystone Dam, if we'd had the time/endurance/inclination to do it all against the current.

Not sure when they took out the Sand Springs LWD, but I don't think you'd make it over that.  Waterboy is probably the member here with the best experience on the river to comment on it.

None of the people in the masters program goes north of 11th St. that I'm aware of.  Pretty much between the old west playground and south of the 11th St. bridge.  The Juniors will go on north and they have one of the motor launches following real close when they do it.

You should come back out, Ponder, there's always room for more rowers.

[waterboy]

quote:Originally posted by PonderInc

About 20 years ago, I was a member of the Tulsa Rowing Club.  Once, a couple of us rowed single sculls up from the West Festival Park area (where the boathouse is now) several miles up the Arkansas River towards Keystone.  

The trick was that you needed high enough water to get upstream from Zink Lake, but not so high you couldn't row against the current.  (I vaguely remember some sort of low concrete barriers that had to be submerged deep enough to float over.  Not dams...just low thingies like the curb on a street?)  Wiggling through all the bridges at 11th Street with lots of eddies and weird currents was an adventure.  

I remember that it was great to "row out of town," into the countryside, but it was gross when we started rowing through that foamy "spooge" stuff that sometimes covers the entire river's surface.  

Not sure, but I think we could have rowed all the way to the Keystone Dam, if we'd had the time/endurance/inclination to do it all against the current.

If you were able to choose the right path through the bridges (to avoid the concrete bridge debris), the next barrier is the natural fault/uplift that runs across the river from the refinery eastward. It is a natural crossing that Indians and pioneers used. One account relates that Creek Indians were chased to that crossing during the Civil war and escaped in the dark of night because they knew where the rocks were.

At 4000cfs or 3ft at the 11ths street bridge, you could go all the way to Sand Springs back then and to the dam if you wished today, though it would be plenty of aching muscles.

[Conan71]

quote:Originally posted by waterboy



At 4000cfs or 3ft at the 11ths street bridge, you could go all the way to Sand Springs back then and to the dam if you wished today, though it would be plenty of aching muscles.

Understatement of the day... []

[shadows]

Wasn't it an only a few years ago that they were finding parts of the old paddle wheel boat that came upstream to Tulsa?

The corps has had as much trouble with dikes to control the old Mississippi as Tulsa SWM has in figuring which street to place the high water signs in a little slow rain storm.  

The corps (I believe) they have miscalculated some 35 times already where the dikes have breached costing millions of dollars to the uninsured home owners that thought they were protected until the dikes failed.  

Over the years we have escaped major flooding because unrestricted the Arkansas River has meandered across unoccupied land leaving extensive river bottom lands.  When we place restrictions in the unpredictable flow, the water is going to find a place to go.

We can error in calculations on the Arkansas same as on the Mississippi.  Even the big plash fell apart.

Keystone is a dirt constructed dam like those that failed in the flooded areas.