Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation

PROJECT PURPOSE

This project is to renew and improve vehicular access to outdoor / wildlife related recreation on Wildlife Management Areas across the state. During the past 18 months we've seen a tremendous increase in the number of people choosing to recreate outdoors. Our 84 Wildlife Management areas, encompassing well over 1 Million acres, remain a very popular destination for outdoor / wildlife related recreation.

EVIDENCE

Our WMA roads across the state have been severely impacted by numerous weather events (primarily long duration and/or high intensity widespread rainfall and associated flooding events). Many miles of WMA roads are no longer passable in a standard (non 4-wheel drive) passenger vehicle during normal weather, and not passable at all during wet or winter weather.

POPULATION DESCRIPTION

Local communities have been impacted economically by diminishing use (by local of our WMA's as roads have been damaged or rendered unusable. WMA users/potential users encompass all races / ethnicities.

PERFORMANCE MEASURING

We will go through a project application for 3:1 matching Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration funding to support this project with a total cost of $5,000,000.00, and follow the planning, environmental compliance, implementation, and reporting processes required to secure the matching funds. We use car counters, as well as game harvest and Human Dimensions surveys to monitor annual WMA usage and customer satisfaction.

ONGOING INVESTMENT AMOUNT

$

ONGOING INVESTMENT DESCRIPTION

None

ONGOING INVESTMENT REQUIRED

Able to continue operation without additional funding from the State of Oklahoma