The plans to fix Lake Carl Blackwell dam are ready. The $22 million to build them isn't.

Oklahoma State University engineers told a Stillwater civic group this month that repairing the Lake Carl Blackwell dam will cost $22 million — and that the university has no funding secured to do it — as a former Stillwater city manager continues to push OSU and state regulators for more aggressive action on the 89-year-old structure.

Carl Weinaug, who served as Stillwater's city manager from 1983 to 2003, sent a letter in January 2026 to OSU leadership outlining six specific actions he is asking the university to take regarding the dam's safety. Weinaug has spent months building public awareness through a Facebook page called Protect Stillwater OK and a website, dambreachmap.com, arguing that decades of documented warnings about the dam have gone without adequate response.

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