River Parks Authority approves contract to manage Zink Lake, dam, whitewater flume (2024)

The River Parks Authority Board of Trustees on Thursday approved an agreement with the city of Tulsa and Tulsa County to manage operations at Zink Dam, Zink Lake and the adjacent whitewater recreational flume.

City and county officials are expected to sign off on the agreement in the next few weeks, and the city-owned assets are scheduled to open Labor Day weekend along with the Williams Crossing pedestrian bridge.

“River Parks will only operate this feature to the level that it is funded; therefore (if it is) defunded in the future, that operational support level would back off, and that’s very clear in this agreement,” said Jeff Edwards, executive director of River Parks Authority.

The agreement takes effect Aug. 30 and will continue until Jan. 31, 2026. Following the initial term, the agreement will automatically renew every two years. The agreement can be terminated by any party provided they give at least six months’ notice prior to the two-year term’s expiration.

“We didn’t want to put River Parks in the position where, ‘Hey, we’ve got an asset now that we have to operate but don’t have the right funding to do it.’ Then we’re seeking private dollars or other public dollars to go do that,” said River Parks Authority Trust Chairman Stephen Fater. “So that is … a key piece of what we have. So (if) at any point in time the city says, ‘Hey, we’re not willing to fund this anymore,’ we’re out.”

Under the terms of the agreement, the city is solely responsible for funding the management services. The city has allocated approximately $1 million for that purpose in its fiscal year 2024-25 general fund budget.

Mayor G.T. Bynum said he is confident that going forward the maintenance and operations endowment to be established as part of the 2016 Vision Tulsa proposal to reconstruct Zink Dam and build another low-water dam in south Tulsa-Jenks will provide the funding needed to maintain the projects long term.

“More fundamentally, Tulsans should elect city councilors and mayors who will prioritize maintenance of the infrastructure we have,” Bynum said. “I have been honored to serve alongside mayors and councilors during my time at the city of Tulsa who made that a priority and am optimistic Tulsans will continue to emphasize taking care of what they own in the future.”

River Parks plans to have a staff of five employees who will be responsible for core operations, which includes daily maintenance and operation of Zink Dam, year-round flume maintenance and shoreline cleanup efforts.

“While it (the dam) has a lot of capable features of kind of operating itself based off of inclinometers in the water and flowcharts and data based off of Keystone Lake releases, there’s still a lot of moving parts,” Fater said.

The city is responsible for testing and publishing Zink Lake’s water quality. Information such as e coli and dissolved oxygen levels can be found at cityoftulsa.org.

Edwards said there may be opportunities for vendors to sell rentals or concessions at the flume in the future but that for now the River Parks Authority is focused on managing the maintenance and operation of the area. Vendors would be required to enter into written contracts with River Parks.

“We’re going into this kind of bare-minimum type of recreational activity in that we really need to focus on: Is this thing manageable in the sense of maintenance and operation first and foremost?” Edwards said. “And then outside of that we’ll look at recreational opportunities. This year’s season is going to be short, anyway.”

The city will celebrate the opening of the flume, Zink Dam, Zink Lake and Williams Crossing and the Gathering Place’s extended riverfront over Labor Day weekend with a celebration called “The Big Dam Party.” The event will feature a raft race, a giant rubber duck and live music highlighted by a performance by Hanson.

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