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Expanded Scenic River Designation on Hold for Illinois River

Lisha Newman
/
Oklahoma Tourism and Recreation

A proposal to put more of the Illinois River under scenic river protections gets stuck in the legislature.

A House committee voted against Senate Bill 75, which would move the boundary from Barron Fork Creek to the Horseshoe Bend public boat ramp at Lake Tenkiller. Resident George Foster said noisy airboats running at all hours are a major nuisance no one has authority to deal with.

"We have a security problem. We do not have any protection from either the sheriff's department, the highway patrol, the [U.S. Army] Corps of Engineers or the Scenic Rivers [Commission]," Foster said.

Former Scenic Rivers Commission Adminstrator Ed Fite addressed concerns the change would affect fishermen.

"We do not want to drive off the anglers who are coming from Missouri to fish. What we do want to drive off, though, are the folks that come to the upper end of the Illinois River and want to run the high-powered boats up and down that corridor just to be doing it and disrupting those fishermen, disrupting the folks that are there floating in kayaks, the landowners that have their homes," Fite said.

Rep. Steve Vaughan was one of four noes in a 3–4 House committee vote on the bill.

"To me, it's the rights of the individual. They have just as much right to be on that river with their boat as he has to be in a house looking at the river," Vaughan said.

If the measure doesn’t make it out of committee at next week’s meeting, it will be dead for this legislative session.

Matt Trotter joined KWGS as a reporter in 2013. Before coming to Public Radio Tulsa, he was the investigative producer at KJRH. His freelance work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times and on MSNBC and CNN.