An update on Muskogee's Three Forks Harbor project

Monday, April 4th 2005, 10:01 am

By: News On 6

It's been a dream for more than 30 years. A first class facility in Oklahoma that would give recreational boatersâ€™ access to the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System.

As News on 6 reporter Rick Wells explains, Muskogee now has it with its Three Forks Harbor Project.

Doesnâ€™t it look inviting, a new spot for boats big and small. The Three Forks Harbor near the Port of Muskogee.

Port Director Scott Robinson says the water we are walking by there is 12 feet deep. Deep enough to handle Oklahoma's biggest boats. "These people have wanted the adventure of the river. They all know you can get to New Orleans from here, they haven't had it packaged in way that would make it easy." This will do it.

When the News on 6 was here last fall the harbor was nothing more than a big hole in the ground. There was no channel to the river, no place to tie up. "It really is a seaport to the world."

If you need proof you can get there from here. When the Nina visited last fall, it had sailed here from the Great Lakes, down the Mississippi, across Arkansas, to Muskogee on the river.

Three Forks Harbor will give recreational boaters easier access to America's major rivers and the Gulf of Mexico. It'll be a great spot for weekend boaters too. "To give recreational boaters a place to tie up to a slip, and to get fuel, and to have the kind of support you'd expect."

Plenty of work left to do, Phase 2 begins in June, that will include a River Center headquarters building, covered boat slips, sales and service facilities and they tell us the finest boating facility on the Arkansas River navigation system.