News

Looking back on GRDA’s 2023: Part 1

Jan 03, 2024

Sharing the safety message all year long … GRDA Police Officer Chris Harper shares some water safety information with a visitor to GRDA’s booth at the 2023 Tulsa Boat Show. GRDA’s participation in boat shows during the winter months is a longstanding tradition and a great way to share boating and floating safety information.

Power for Progress.

As the Grand River Dam Authority moves into 2024, we wanted to take a quick look back at the year 2023 and some of the activities that helped define the last 12 months for Team GRDA. In this first part, we look back at January through March …

Team GRDA welcomed the new year with a focus on employee training, development, and safety. During January, the GRDA Safety Department held a series of employee forums to discuss issues such as COVID, winter weather preparations and other employee safety issues. GRDA also held its annual cyber readiness training during the month. The new year and new month were also opportunities for GRDA to kick off its new Knowledge Is Power initiative. That effort involved a round of listening sessions with frontline utility workers in GRDA municipal customer communities. The goal? To gather feedback for the development of new customer energy communications resources to help tell the story of community public power, rates, energy efficiency, electric safety, and other messaging. The listening sessions would continue throughout the year.

In February, GRDA crews from several departments came together at Robert S. Kerr Dam to complete a major sump pump upgrade project. The final tie-ins were completed late in the month to cap off the successful initiative and a great #OneGRDA teamwork example. The GRDA Police Department also continued its tradition of participating in the Tulsa Boat, Sport & Travel Show during February, where it had the opportunity to share important lake rules and water safety information with thousands of visitors. Finally, while February did bring some snow and ice to Northeast Oklahoma, the GRDA energy delivery system held up well during the storms.

In March, GRDA’s Grand River Energy Center (GREC) generation team traveled to Georgia Power’s McDonough Plant, near Atlanta, to review lessons learned from the plant’s real-world demonstration of hydrogen and natural gas blending in the plant’s turbine generator. This was part of the research ahead of GRDA’s Unit 4 project (more on that in later months). During the month, the GRDA Ecosystems and Watershed Management Department released its annual review – Ecosystems Exploration – highlighting its recent project, programs, and research. The report is available on grda.com. On the shores of Lake Hudson, GRDA completed the installation of new playground equipment, to enhance the visitor experience at Snowdale Park, which would also open to overnight camping later in the month. As another March highlight, GRDA was able to donate used police SUVs to the Pawnee and Watts Police Departments. Pawnee is a longtime GRDA municipal customer community, and Watts, located just downstream from the new WOKA Whitewater Park, will play a role in supporting visitor safety and security at the park.

Next week, we continue our lookback by reviewing the GRDA highlights of late spring and early summer …