DEQ Issues Order Not To Use City of McAlester Water
The Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality has issued an order not to use water from the City of McAlester and several nearby Rural Water Districts.
An electrical problem shut down the pumps that feed McAlester’s water towers on Wednesday.
Later that evening, the city told residents it had bypassed the pumps and restored water.
That bypass involved using a fire truck as a pump. A DEQ spokesperson says a fire truck is “not approved equipment” for moving potable water.
The DEQ issued an order not to use the water Thursday morning.
This is not a boil order. Boiling water kills bacteria but doesn’t help with other contaminants, and the DEQ doesn’t know what McAlester’s water might contain.
The agency says affected residents should use bottled water for drinking, cooking, doing dishes, brushing teeth and washing hands.
It’s unclear when the D-E-Q will lift the order. But an agency spokesperson estimates next week. For now, the National Guard is in McAlester providing assistance.
Cherokee Nation Pumps Up Water Infrastructure in Salina
The Cherokee Nation is making $1 million in improvements to water infrastructure in the small Northeast Oklahoma town of Salina, 60 miles east of Tulsa.
The funds will rehab the town's water storage tanks and repair pump stations to improve water pressure in homes and businesses.
Cherokee Nation estimates the project will serve more than 540 households in the town with a population of about 1,300.
The money comes from federal COVID relief funds. The tribal nation has budgeted almost $60 million for water infrastructure across its 14-county reservation over the last three years.
Opioid Antagonist Bills Vetoed
Senate Bills 711 and 712 would have used state funding to pay for overdose reversal drugs — the first providing it to people who were just released from prisons or county jails, and the second to people just released from overdose care at the hospital.
They also would create a program to educate these people on signs of overdose and how to administer the medication.
Access to naloxone or narcan has become a major public health initiative since the onset of the opioid epidemic, and even more so after synthetic fentanyl has been showing up in supplies unexpectedly and causing people to overdose.
"They need some help. We want to save their lives just like we would anybody else," said Senate Health and Human Services chairman Paul Rosino, the author.
But in an effort to pressure the Senate into taking up his education plan, Gov. Stitt has been mass vetoing Senate bills, including these.
"I hope and pray that no one in Oklahoma dies ‘cause of these vetoes. But, you know, I used to tell my children: actions have consequences," said Rosino.
The Legislature could vote to override the veto.
In 2021, 960 Oklahomans died of a drug overdose, according to the CDC.
Richard Glossip Requests Clemency Hearing Be Deemed Null And Void
Death row inmate Richard Glossip is asking the Oklahoma County District Court to declare his recent clemency hearing null and void.
Following last week’s split Pardon and Parole Board vote that resulted in no recommendation for clemency, Richard Glossip filed an amended petition to ask the Oklahoma County District Court to nullify the hearing.
Only four of the five board members were present at Glossip’s clemency hearing. Richard Smothermon, who is married to a prosecutor from Glossip’s 2004 retrial, recused himself.
The petition argues the board should have found a substitute member to vote in the hearing and further says state statute and code that does not require this is in violation of the state constitution.
In addition to requesting the statute and code be deemed unconstitutional, Glossip seeks an emergency stay of execution and a permanent injunction preventing him from being executed without a new clemency hearing.
He is scheduled to be executed on May 18.
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