Mary Fallin

A decade after the state-run Texoma Lodge and Resort was sold to a private company that never fulfilled its promise to develop a multi-million dollar resort there, Gov. Mary Fallin and the Chickasaw Nation on Thursday announced plans for the tribe to build a resort hotel and casino instead.

Southeast Oklahoma has many of the state’s largest lakes and rivers and most of the state’s water, but no one from the area serves on the Oklahoma Water Resources Board, the state’s water regulator. A 2013 law requires the area to have representation. But, so far, that hasn’t happened.

The money is going to a pair of agencies tasked with researching the earthquake surge and regulating the oil and gas activities likely causing it.

The multi-agency effort to rein in Oklahoma’s earthquake boom has been hampered for years with incomplete information about faults and formations, and inconsistent data from the operators of disposal wells linked to the shaking.

Unit No. 3 is buzzing with construction workers who are installing environmental upgrades to make the coal-fired operation run cleaner.

President Obama’s Clean Power Plan enraged many top officials in Oklahoma, who argued the rules were an expensive, unnecessary overreach by the federal government. But the effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions could create opportunities in Oklahoma, researchers and officials say.