Dear Oklahoma Turnpike Authority,
I and my family live in the proposed path of the North-South Connector near 60th SE and Lindsey in a beautiful wooded neighborhood of 60 homes on 2½ acre lots that has been here for 50 years. I have friends who built their homes and raised their families between 48th and 72nd SE in the proposed corridor and have multiple generations of their family living out here. We are in the heart of the unique Cross Timbers region of central Oklahoma. Our neighborhood contains native post oak, blackjack oak, pin oak, shumard oak, and chinquapin oak; hickory; black walnut; rusty blackhaw; roughleaf dogwood; sugarberry; redbud; gum bumelia; pecan; coralberry; beautyberry; sumac; persimmon; cottonwood; American elm; and loblolly pine. I’ve loved learning the names of these majestic beauties. When I walk the neighborhood, I often collect Oklahoma’s distinctive rose rocks from the narrow vein that runs through here. I gather morel mushrooms and dewberries in season.
The wildlife is vibrant here, particularly the birdlife. As I write this, I see a flurry of activity in my backyard as bird parents are introducing their recently fledged hatchlings to the smorgasbord outside my windows. I watch a mama bluebird venture out of her birdhouse where she’s brooding five eggs. Our neighborhood is home to cardinals; white-breasted and red-breasted nuthatches; eastern bluebirds; blue jays; tufted titmice; Carolina chickadees; pileated, downy, hairy, red-bellied, and flicker woodpeckers; crows; ruby-throated hummingbirds; roadrunners; barred owls; red-shouldered hawks; Mississippi kites; white winged and mourning doves; mockingbirds; pine siskins; yellow-rumped warblers; brown headed cowbirds; painted buntings and indigo buntings; goldfinches, purple finches and house finches; robins; Carolina and house wrens. These are the birds we see from our windows. In the tree canopy we hear and hope to catch fleeting glimpses of blue-gray gnatcatchers; great crested flycatchers; northern parula; white-eyed, red-eyed, warbling, and blue-headed vireos; summer tanagers; Nashville, yellow-throated, orange-crowned, black-and-white, Tennessee, and yellow warblers; cedar waxwings; brown thrashers and Swainson’s thrushes. Every morning and evening we watch a great blue heron wing its way to and from Lake Thunderbird to our east and its heronry somewhere to our northwest.
We and our neighbors are stewards of this land and of the wildlife that’s found refuge here, the fox squirrels, rabbits, opossums, armadillos, turkey, deer, foxes, bats, bobcats, coyotes, skunks—some of which are considered nuisances to our urban neighbors to the west. They have found refuge here and so have we. We’ve been here for 16 years and have stewarded our few acres with love and care, avoiding chemicals in our yard that would inevitably end up in Lake Thunderbird just a mile or so away and damage the habitat we share.
I realize this land is just a plot on a map to you, a potential route for a toll road. But I’m asking you to take a moment to see this land through my eyes. I beg of you, please do not destroy our land and our neighbors’ land and take our homes for something that isn’t needed or wanted but instead will devastate the Cross Timbers ecosystem. I don’t presume to understand your motives. I cannot judge your hearts. But your actions speak for themselves.
Yesterday, I drove through Picher, Oklahoma on my way home from visiting a friend in Kansas City. Picher is an ugly nightmarish wasteland of mountains of toxic chat from the lead and zinc mines, a ghost town with the life sucked out of it, what remains after a valuable commodity was removed from the earth without understanding or regard for how it affected the people or the ecosystem there. Then I drove down Kickapoo Turnpike just to see what you accomplished there. I saw very few cars but a vast unnecessarily wide swath of engineered and prettily turfed wasteland where homes once stood and the ecosystem was forever altered. Take a moment to remember what happened in Picher. Heed history. I know your toll roads are easy on the eye compared to Picher, but we who live out here know what will be destroyed and disappear forever if you build your toll roads through here. We will stand against what you think is good for what we know is best.
Sincerely,
Candace Magruder
PS: For more information and to follow public objections to the turnpike extension, we recommend Amy Cerato’s substack.
