{"id":13388,"date":"2013-03-21T10:31:16","date_gmt":"2013-03-21T15:31:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/?p=13388"},"modified":"2013-06-14T14:00:37","modified_gmt":"2013-06-14T19:00:37","slug":"whats-next-for-failed-lake-optima-the-oklahoma-reservoir-that-never-filled","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2013\/03\/21\/whats-next-for-failed-lake-optima-the-oklahoma-reservoir-that-never-filled\/","title":{"rendered":"What&#8217;s Next for Failed &#8216;Lake&#8217; Optima, the Oklahoma Reservoir That Never Filled?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_13396\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 300px;\"><a class=\"fancybox\" title=\"Weston Storer, biologist at Beaver River, Optima, and Rita Blanca Wildlife Management Areas points toward Optima Dam and what's left of the reservoir. \" href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2013\/03\/StorerPhoto.jpg\" rel=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13396\" title=\"StorerPhoto\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2013\/03\/StorerPhoto-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Logan Layden \/ StateImpact Oklahoma<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">State biologist Weston Storer points toward Lake Optima Dam and what&#39;s left of the reservoir.<\/p>\n<\/div><p>The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers <a title=\"StateImpactLink\" href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2012\/09\/27\/why-oklahoma-built-more-lakes-than-any-other-state\/\" target=\"_blank\">built more lakes<\/a> in Oklahoma than any other state. Some of those reservoirs struggle to fill, especially during drought, or end up holding more <a href=\"http:\/\/newsok.com\/can-the-great-salt-plains-lake-be-saved\/article\/3694510\">silt<\/a> than water. But none have been a bigger failure than Lake Optima.<\/p><p>When construction finished in 1978, the federal government had spent about $50 million building the three-mile long dam near Guymon in the Oklahoma Panhandle. The lake project was supposed to attract millions of tourists and provide\u00a0residents\u00a0with drinking water and flood protection.<\/p><p>But the river that fed Optima dried to a trickle during the 10-year construction process, and has never been more than 5 percent full.<\/p><p>The Corps still spends money to maintain the dam, but no longer wants to. The question now is what to do with it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lake Optima was supposed to attract millions of tourists and provide residents in Oklahoma&#8217;s panhandle with drinking water and flood protection. But Optima never really filled. The question now is what to do with it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":13396,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[491],"tags":[520,466,427],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13388"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13388"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18109,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13388\/revisions\/18109"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}