{"id":17826,"date":"2014-01-02T12:37:19","date_gmt":"2014-01-02T18:37:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/?p=17826"},"modified":"2014-01-02T12:37:19","modified_gmt":"2014-01-02T18:37:19","slug":"from-guymon-to-poteau-and-beyond-the-biggest-stateimpact-stories-of-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2014\/01\/02\/from-guymon-to-poteau-and-beyond-the-biggest-stateimpact-stories-of-2013\/","title":{"rendered":"From Guymon to Poteau and Beyond: The Biggest StateImpact Stories of 2013"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Logan<\/p>\n

Joe Wertz \/ StateImpact Oklahoma<\/p>\n

Logan Layden talks with Kiowa historian "Joe Fish" DuPoint about the potential impact of limestone mining on Longhorn Mountain in August 2013.<\/p>\n<\/div>

The StateImpact team traveled about 10,000 miles in 2013 to interview Oklahomans about how government policy affects their lives.<\/p>

Our reporting took us to all corners of Oklahoma, across the border into Texas, and to the nation’s capital and the U.S. Supreme Court.<\/p>

<\/p>\n

Water<\/h2>\n
\"In<\/p>\n

Joe Wertz \/ StateImpact Oklahoma<\/p>\n

In January 2013, Oklahoma City's Lake Hefner recorded its lowest lake level in its 66-year history.<\/p>\n<\/div>

Drought had gripped<\/a>\u00a0the entire state by the beginning of 2013, and was a prominent focus of many of the year’s stories.<\/p>

Oklahoma’s\u00a0big fight with Texas<\/a>\u00a0over water in southeastern Oklahoma went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, and StateImpact was there to hear the arguments in the case the Sooner State eventually won.<\/p>\n

\"Joe<\/p>\n

Logan Layden \/ StateImpact Oklahoma<\/p>\n

Joe Wertz interviews Jimmy Piercey about the fate of Oklahoma's Depression-era shelterbelts in September 2013.<\/p>\n<\/div>

Another aspect of the drought that caught our attention was its effect on Oklahoma’s crumbling water infrastructure, particularly in small towns like Konawa, Okla.<\/a>, where the prospect of costly repairs and updates threaten the very existence of the community.<\/p>

At the bottom of Konawa’s wells: The Arbuckle-Simpson Aquifer<\/a>, perhaps the state’s most sensitive water resource. The underground water supply has been stressed not only by drought, but by sand and limestone mining, too.<\/p>

StateImpact was on hand when the Oklahoma Water Resources Board finally put a limit<\/a> on how much water mining companies \u2014 and anyone else \u2014 can displace from the aquifer so many towns rely on.<\/p>\n

Moore Tornado<\/h2>\n
\"Lauren<\/p>\n

Joe Wertz \/ StateImpact Oklahoma<\/p>\n

Lauren Gardner stands near a family members house, which was destroyed by the tornado.<\/p>\n<\/div>

But the story we remember most came right to our doorstep \u2014 to Moore \u2014 in the form of a tornado destructive beyond description.\u00a0For the next few months our focus shifted <\/a>to the government’s role in natural disasters.<\/p>

We asked why Oklahoma has prioritized<\/a> spending federal money on individual storm shelters instead of shelters in schools, and why emergency managers are no longer interested<\/a> in public community shelters, when they were a big focus in Cold War-era disaster planning.<\/p>

StateImpact also examined state and local building codes<\/a>, which don’t account for tornadoes, and used data to truth-test some of the popular myths surrounding twisters.<\/p>\n

Earthquake Swarm<\/h2>\n
\"University<\/p>\n

Joe Wertz \/ StateImpact Oklahoma<\/p>\n

University of Oklahoma graduate students near Wellston, Okla., installing a seismometer to study central-Oklahoma's earthquake swarm<\/p>\n<\/div>

But throughout the year, another issue was making waves, seismic ones<\/a>. Oklahoma is in the middle of an earthquake swarm, and scientists say it’s likely linked to oil and gas drilling.<\/p>

StateImpact’s earthquake coverage was the most popular among readers, too. Our March 2013 story<\/a> that detailed a new study linking Oklahoma’s quakes to disposal wells used by the oil and gas industry was the No. 1 most-viewed story on the site in 2013, and our interactive map<\/a> of the earthquake swarm came in at No. 2.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The StateImpact team traveled about 10,000 miles in 2013 to interview Oklahomans about how government affects their lives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[492,490,491],"tags":[509,581,423,500,539,540,427],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17826"}],"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=17826"}],"version-history":[{"count":28,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17826\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17867,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17826\/revisions\/17867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}