A diverse group known as the Oklahoma Stewardship Council is making a final case against State Question 777.
Cherokee Nation Secretary of Natural Resources Sarah Hill said even though the so-called "right to farm" constitutional amendment will not be law on tribal lands, it will affect them.
"We are neighbors with Oklahoma, so, of course, what happens in Oklahoma dramatically affects life in the Cherokee Nation," Hill said. "This is natural resources. They don't discriminate based on boundaries."
Oklahoma Stewardship Council has spent $722,560 on TV ads against SQ777 as of Oct. 31. Opposition groups have spent a combined $1.4 million on TV ads, while groups in support have spent nearly $1.2 million, almost $1.1 million of that coming from Oklahoma Farmers Care.
Oklahoma Stewardship Council is made up of dozens of cities, former politicians both Democrat and Republican, faith leaders, and farmers, including Tulsa Mayor Dewey Bartlett. He said he has a contract to use Delaware County water to irrigate his Osage County pecan farm.
"The last thing I want to do is to get into a fight with a farmer in western Oklahoma who thinks he's more of a farmer than I am, and he wants to have the water that I have the right to now," Bartlett said.
SQ 777 would send such disputes to court. It prohibits the state from passing laws regulating "agricultural technology" and allows challenges to some existing laws, even at the local level. Tulsa City Councilor Anna America said the measure would leave no protection on several areas of the city currently zoned agricultural to prevent high-impact development.
"We literally could have people trying to put pig farms in on Brookside or on Riverside Drive," America said. "Those things are real, actual, possible threats."
A recent poll of likely voters shows 37 percent in support of SQ777, 49 percent opposed and 14 percent undecided.
