Tulsa area residents who got flooded in the recent storms are questioning the policies of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers concerning the timing and the rates of release of water from the Keystone Dam.

Why, they ask, didn’t the Corps order more water released when heavy rains were forecast? If Keystone Lake had been drawn down prior to the torrential rains, that would have mitigated the flooding in Sand Springs, Tulsa, Bixby, Muskogee, Fort Gibson, Webber’s Falls and other locations downstream.

In a public meeting in Sand Springs, officials from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said their policy was to react to “water on the ground.” In other words, they don’t release water from Keystone Dam until levels actually rise in Keystone Lake. And, reportedly, this is not some rule or policy dreamed up by a bureaucrat but was a plan that has the full approval by the U.S. Congress.

Flood victims argue that they built on 500-year flood plains because they were assured that federal officials would use dams to mitigate flooding.

They don’t think the strategy worked.

One of the problems is that releasing water from Keystone Lake – in an effort to save the dam – affects not only the Tulsa area but areas in Arkansas, including Fort Smith, Conway and Little Rock. They got flooded while the sun was shining because of runoff of the Arkansas River from its watershed in Colorado, Kansas and Oklahoma.

There’s no easy answer. The river levees need to be rebuilt and property owners need to think twice before building in a flood zone.

And Congress should revisit its policy for releasing water.