Who Pays the Most for Water In Oklahoma?

• Logan Layden
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  Logan Layden is a reporter and managing editor for StateImpact Oklahoma. He is a native of McAlester, Oklahoma and graduated from the University of Oklahoma in 2009. Logan spent three years as a state capitol reporter and local host of All Things Considered for NPR member station KGOU in Norman and six years as a reporter with StateImpact from 2011 to 2017. Most recently, he was news director for McAlester Radio before returning to public radio in 2020.

Logan Layden / StateImpact Oklahoma

Every two years, the Oklahoma Municipal League surveys hundreds of its member cities and towns about their water rates.

StateImpact got an early look at the 2012 data, and found Fort Towson, just across the Red River in Choctaw County, has the highest residential water rate of any community that responded to the OML survey.

Fort Towsoners pay $66.00 per month for 5,000 gallons of water. Contrast that with the rural Ellis County town of Gage in northwest Oklahoma, where residents pay just $8.60 for the same amount.

When a town’s tax base is tiny, and the Department of Environmental Quality mandates expensive water infrastructure improvements, raising utility bills can be the only hope for staying solvent.