MARSHALL COUNTY, Okla -- Citizens upset over a land deal unite. Some residents in Southern Oklahoma are trying to reverse plans for a redevelopment of Lake Texoma.
A group known as "Friends of Lake Texoma State Park" met Saturday to prevent what they call an environmental and economic disaster.
"We're very concerned that thorough environmental study of the proposed project be performed before the Corps of Engineers sells anymore land," said Stephen Willis with the Friends of Lake Texoma State Park.
The group made up of Southern Marshall County land and business owners is at odds with Pointe Vista, the company that plans to develop the land around Lake Texoma.
Pointe Vista has proposed to convert the land into a residential and commercial site for housing editions, condominiums and hotels.
Pointe Vista representatives were invited to the meeting Saturday to lay out a long awaited plan of exactly what they intend to do with the 564 acres of land surrounding Lake Texoma.
The representatives did not show up, so members of the Friends of Lake Texoma are now concerned that there is not a plan to relocate that section of the state park, and it might be lost forever.
"Once the park is gone there's very little you can hold over their head, we want the sun to shine on them right now at this time when their kind of putting out the wrong impression that they're doing an environmental study, when they're not," said Willis.
Oklahoma state senator Jay Paul Gumm is backing the redevelopment of the land, and released this statement to First News:
"I know even a positive change can be hard for some and I am sensitive to the concerns expressed. That is why I have met with representatives of the group opposed to the development. Still, I remain firmly convinced the Lake Texoma redevelopment is in the best interest of the future of southern Oklahoma, our economy, and the tourists who will visit our area in the years ahead."
"it raises the question of how serious are Aubrey McClendon and Mark Fisher, the owners of Pointe Vista, in meeting the terms of national environmental laws," said Willis.
We did attempt to contact a representative from Pointe Vista, he did not return our phone calls.
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