Oklahoma Labor Commissioner Leslie Osborn has a blunt assessment of some of the industrial projects proposed across Oklahoma including the $4 billion aluminun smelter and dozens of data centers.
“Every one of these opportunities is shortsighted and will cause irreparable harm to our state’s environment.”
“The only way to stop these projects is to reach out to our elected officials and demand studies and moratoriums, before it is too late.”
She includes the proposed U.S. Energy Department nuclear campus where Oklahoma is among 5 finalists for the projects, suggesting “good ole boys network” is at play and the end result will be harm to Oklahoma’s water supplies.
Osborn, a former Republican legislator who was elected in 2018 as Labor Commissioner and in her second term, recently wrote her opinion in the Sunday Oklahoman Viewpoint about the industrial project efforts in Oklahoma, including some supported by state leaders.
“The news in Oklahoma is full of opportunities being offered to our state in the way of 49 data centers currently active or under construction, an aluminum smelter project in Inola, and the possibility of a nuclear power facility. They all tout great things for the state, but do not be fooled. Every one of these opportunities is shortsighted and will cause irreparable harm to our state’s environment.
In America, as well as Oklahoma, we have abdicated our system of checks and balances. What might have been flagged as environmentally dangerous, now receives no flags or boundaries, as long as the planners are in the old boys’ network with those in charge. Without a doubt our greatest natural resource is water. Having grown up in a ranching family I was raised to be a steward of these resources.
Oklahoma sits above the Ogallala aquifer, an underground network of fresh water under eight U.S. states. It has been drying up since the first high-capacity irrigation well was tapped in 1909. Erosion cut off the eastward streams that fed it from the Rocky Mountains, so now it only recharges with rainwater and snowmelt. This amount of recharging only adds one inch a year on average. Meanwhile it is being pumped to irrigate over 13 million acres of farmland, provide water for homes and other industries. So, before we even add all of these new water hungry projects it is diminishing too rapidly and will eventually go dry. There is no way to speed up the refill process, we can only manage what water we have left. This would imply that the governor and Legislature should have long-term planning employed, so that we do not become arid, such as Arizona, which requires pebbled yards, no swimming pools or sprinklers and rationed drinking water; let alone the end of farming and ranching.
Calls to put moratoriums on these projects to assess the danger have gone unanswered in the name of economic development. A few connected people become wealthy from the land sales, then there are good construction jobs for six months to a year. After this permanent job creation for our residents is minimal, a very short-term gain. Data centers could be required to use new methods such as closed loop technology that does not use huge volumes of water, but we are not requiring it because it hurts the builders profit margins, and they employ lobbyists.
Now, added to the devastating depletion of our groundwater, are the other dangerous aspects. Aluminum smelting is dirty and destructive to the air we breathe. We have signed on with the United Arab Emirates to build a massive facility in Inola, without crucial input from area residents or environmental experts to tell us the long-term damage that will occur. The nuclear facility our state requested to compete for, and made the top five contenders of, requires that we bury not only our nuclear waste, but that from other states in our soil. This can lead to groundwater and biosphere contamination, as well as radiation exposure. The current federal administration is moving to eliminate foundational safety principles to speed up the construction of these facilities to satisfy their big tech mega-donors. What in the world are we thinking of, by enriching a few citizens and looking the other way? Will we have a state left where our children can live and make a living? Our complacency may doom us. The only way to stop these projects is to reach out to our elected officials and demand studies and moratoriums, before it is too late.”
Leslie Osborn is Oklahoma’s labor commissioner
