{"id":20574,"date":"2014-07-10T14:07:09","date_gmt":"2014-07-10T19:07:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/?p=20574"},"modified":"2014-07-10T14:26:34","modified_gmt":"2014-07-10T19:26:34","slug":"four-more-state-parks-at-risk-as-budget-cuts-and-low-attendance-loom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2014\/07\/10\/four-more-state-parks-at-risk-as-budget-cuts-and-low-attendance-loom\/","title":{"rendered":"Four More State Parks at Risk as Budget Cuts and Low Revenue Loom"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_20587\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 300px;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-20587\" alt=\"A waterfall at Disney State Park on Grand Lake in northeast Oklahoma.\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2014\/07\/20141007-DisneyParkPic001_WEB-300x199.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Christopher Caldwell \/ Flickr<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">A waterfall at Disney State Park on Grand Lake in northeast Oklahoma.<\/p>\n<\/div><p>Four state parks in northeastern Oklahoma could be sold off, leased out or closed due to state budget cuts and low park revenue.<\/p><p>Oklahoma Department of Tourism and Recreation hasn&#8217;t made a final decision on three of the parks, but is considering selling or leasing Disney\/Little Blue Area at Grand Lake, Snowdale Area at Grand Lake and Spring River Canoe Trails.<\/p><p>But the agency on July 8 decided to terminate the state&#8217;s lease at Walnut Creek, which is owned by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kjrh.com\/news\/local-news\/oklahoma-department-of-tourism-and-recreation-explores-selling-or-leasing-state-parks\">KJRH reports<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Selling or leasing the parks are just two of the options they are considering.<\/p><p>Blair said department leaders are exploring all possibilities.<\/p><p>On Tuesday, the tourism and recreation department said it would terminate its lease at Walnut Creek State Park in Osage County, thereby closing the park at the end of summer.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h4 style=\"text-align: center;\"><a title=\"StateImpactLink\" href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2011\/09\/16\/a-tale-of-two-cities-paying-for-parks-when-the-state-trims-its-budget\/\" target=\"_blank\"><!--more--><\/a>Oklahoma State Parks at Risk of Sale, Lease or Closure<\/h4><p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/fusiontables\/embedviz?q=select+col4+from+1BCYchzHPu68DHK3okRMHJzhlM5JjO_mq4S8EZciO&viz=MAP&h=false&lat=36.47137005400785&lng=-95.32301534765622&t=1&z=8&l=col4&y=2&tmplt=2&hml=TWO_COL_LAT_LNG\" height=\"413\" width=\"620\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p><p>StateImpact has reported on the dwindling number of state parks since a major budget crisis that began five years ago. In 2011, the department of tourism offloaded seven state parks to save about $700,000.<\/p><p><a title=\"StateImpactLink\" href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2014\/04\/03\/what-ever-happened-to-the-seven-state-parks-oklahoma-couldnt-afford-to-keep\/\" target=\"_blank\">All seven parks remain open today<\/a> after being taken over by cities and tribal governments.<\/p><p>The decision has been made to <a title=\"KJRH\" href=\"http:\/\/www.kjrh.com\/news\/local-news\/walnut-creek-state-park-to-close-at-the-end-of-summer\" target=\"_blank\">end the lease at Walnut Creek<\/a>, which will close unless the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers finds another tenant, KJRH reports:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Park visitors say they are worried about public access and fees should the parks be leased or sold.<\/p><p>&#8220;State parks are for people who pay taxes and it&#8217;s part of our right to enjoy that. I&#8217;d hate to see it go privatized,&#8221; said Lisa Myers, a frequent visitor to Snowdale State Park.<\/p><\/blockquote><p>The latest data from the tourism department wasn&#8217;t available to StateImpact by the time this article was published, but as of 2011 Spring River State Park was the cheapest to run, least attended and least revenue-generating state park in Oklahoma.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Four state parks in northeastern Oklahoma could be sold off, leased out or closed due to state budget cuts and low park revenue.Oklahoma Department of Tourism and Recreation hasn&#8217;t made a final decision on three of the parks, but is considering selling or leasing Disney\/Little Blue Area at Grand Lake, Snowdale Area at Grand Lake [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[491],"tags":[111],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20574"}],"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=20574"}],"version-history":[{"count":28,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20601,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20574\/revisions\/20601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}