91 years and counting

April 26 marks the Grand River Dam Authority’s 91st birthday. It was on that date, back in April of 1935, when the 15th Oklahoma legislature passed the “GRDA Enabling Act” to create the agency to be a “conservation and reclamation district for the waters of the Grand River.”

GRDA embraced that responsibility from the beginning and, just over five years later, it constructed Oklahoma’s first hydroelectric facility and the longest continuous multiple arch dam in the world -Pensacola Dam - across the Grand River Valley. The dam not only harnessed the water to produce renewable electricity (something it has done now for over 86 years) but it also created Grand Lake, which has been the foundation for a thriving recreation and tourism industry and economic development engine ever since. According to numbers from the Oklahoma Department of Commerce, population in the Grand Lake region grew by 8.2 percent in the first decade after the dam’s completion.

There are other highlights during GRDA’s first 91 years… In 1968 it completed the first phase of the Salina Pumped Storage Project (SPSP). Oklahoma’s only pumped storage project, the SPSP was considered experimental by many critics who claimed it would “break GRDA” during its construction. However, the hydro facility continues to play a key role in GRDA’s overall generation portfolio today, over half a century later.

More recently, in 2017, GRDA completed construction on its Unit 3 combined-cycle gas generation unit. Not only was it the first unit of its kind in the Western Hemisphere but it was also the most efficient 60 hertz power plant in the world when it began operations.

Today, all that hydro and gas generation is still part of GRDA’s diverse and beneficial electric generation portfolio. Meanwhile, the agency created to be a steward for the waters of the Grand River, oversees roughly 70,000 surface acres of lake waters as well as the scenic Illinois River. Through it all, Team GRDA works 24/7/365 to meet the mission, carrying on the good work that began in 1935.

GRDA is Oklahoma’s largest public power electric utility; fully funded by revenues from electric and water sales instead of taxes. Each day, GRDA strives to be an “Oklahoma agency of excellence” by focusing on the 5 E’s: electricity, economic development, environmental stewardship, employees, and efficiency.