Oklahoma’s Grand River Dam Authority is refusing to supply a federal regulator with documentation it used to study flooding around the town of Miami. The study, ordered by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, concluded that the Grand River Dam Authority should not be required to buy out landowners affected by flooding. 

The federal regulator asked the Grand River Dam Authority in December to hand over supporting materials used in the study within 30 days. 

An attorney for the Grand River Dam Authority responded on Jan. 21, stating that a federal circuit court now has jurisdiction over the case and “GRDA has no obligation to respond to it at this time.”

The federal regulator wrote back on Feb. 18, repeating its request for supporting documentation within 15 days, which expired on March 5.

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A spokesman for the Grand River Dam Authority declined to comment on the matter, citing pending litigation.

The Grand River Dam Authority filed suit in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2024 seeking to overturn an order from the federal regulator that found the Pensacola Dam is one of the major causes of flooding in Miami. The ruling also found that the Grand River Dam Authority has violated its license by not buying out affected property owners and gave the agency 120 days to submit a report on the flooding.

Charles Sensiba, an attorney for the Grand River Dam Authority wrote in the January letter that it wants to wait for a court ruling on the matter before handing over additional records.

“Until the court renders its decision, any further work by Commission staff would be administratively inefficient and could well require staff to re-do work already completed, and for GRDA and other parties to simultaneously litigate this matter before both the Commission and the court—results that would unnecessarily burden all parties and Commission staff,” Sensiba wrote.

The landowners and Miami city government say that the chronic flooding in the area is caused in part by the Pensacola Dam, near Langley, and the way the Grand River Dam Authority releases water from the dam. Federal officials have warned since the 1940s  that the dam was causing a “backwater effect” that was in part responsible for flooding in Miami.

In 2019, then-U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe inserted a rider into a 2020 defense bill to limit the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s ability to regulate the lake’s level and prevent the regulator from requiring the Grand River Dam Authority to obtain flood easements or buy additional land from property owners outside of the project’s current boundaries, even if they are prone to flooding. Inhofe’s rider also freed the Grand River Dam Authority to keep lake levels between three feet below flood stage. The authority will also be able to keep the lake just under the flood level year-round after it obtains a new license from federal regulators.

The chronic flooding has hampered the town’s efforts to bring in new businesses and required some homeowners to purchase flood insurance, city leaders said. Residents and businesses that have been flooded repeatedly are either taking buyouts from the Federal Emergency Management Administration or just trying to sell their properties.

Shannon O’Neill, an attorney for the City of Miami, accused the Grand River Dam Authority of acting in bad faith.

“The City of Miami agrees with FERC that GRDA must disclose the model used in its upstream flooding study—especially because GRDA’s conclusions are so lopsided in its own favor and inconsistent with decades of past studies,” O’Neill said. “A good neighbor for northeast Oklahoma would show its work.  It is revealing that GRDA is instead trying to hide its model behind procedural technicalities.”