"With the extreme drought, we've had across Oklahoma, there are a lot of cities that are really suffering," says Dan Blankenship, Director of the Stillwater Utilities Authority.

But, thanks to forward-thinking, Stillwater is not one of those cities. "Stillwater has a history of being progressive, of looking forward and having good leaders," says Mayor John Bartley, of the City of Stillwater.

In the 1970's, Stillwater leaders had no problem using Lake Carl Blackwell as their water supply. But, thinking ahead, they passed a sales tax to fund a 40-mile water line from Kaw Lake, east of Ponca City, which is fed by the Arkansas River. "They knew the city of Stillwater was going to grow," says Blankenship.

Residents saw the decision as unnecessary, but city leaders made it anyway, and by the looks of Lake Carl Blackwell these days... it was a good decision. "It doesn't look a whole lot different than Lake Hefner right now," says Blankenship.

Thanks to that decision, with just under 50,000 people, Stillwater now has more than enough water to go around. So much so, they're spreading the wealth. "We sell water to rural water districts around Stillwater, and we just entered into agreement to sell water to the Lone Chimney Water Association because Lone Chimney Lake is all but dry," says Mayor Bartley.

"We use about 8,000-acre-feet per year and we have about 52-thousand-acre-feet worth of water rights," says Blankenship, stating that there's plenty of room for more growth.

Thankful for the forward-thinkers of the past, city leaders are now paying it forward. Five years ago, they implemented a rate-increase. They've been saving the money that's now being used to fix the water lines for the next 30 years.

"The approach we take is not to fix it for today or fix it for tomorrow. We ask, what will our demands be for the next 30 years? And, we're trying to fix it for the next 30 years," says Mayor Bartley.

"Water is life. Without water, you have no life, so we're in a very, very fortunate position," says Blankenship.

In July of 2012, Oklahoma implemented new regulations that allow for the re-use of water, with certain restrictions. Though Stillwater is doing just fine with its water supply, the city plans to implement some sort of water re-use plan in the future.