GBRA Receives Funds for Project
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Texas Water Development Board (TWDB) announced July 26 it will provide $165,855,000 in financial assistance to Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority (GBRA) for the planning, design, acquisition and construction costs associated with a water-supply project.
The project represents the first phase of GBRA’s Mid-Basin Water Supply Project (MBWSP), which includes constructing a wellfield, some 58 miles of water transmission pipeline, and a 33.5-million-gallon-per-day water treatment plant.
Funds will help GBRA meet water demands associated with population growth in Comal, Guadalupe, Hays and Caldwell counties by supplying 24.4 billion gallons of water from the Guadalupe River.
MBWSP is part of the South Central Texas Regional Water Plan, according to an August 2015 presentation at the Texas Groundwater Summit by James Lee Murphy, executive manager for Water Resources & Utility Operations for GBRA.
To view an interactive, phase-by-phase map of the project, click here.
However, critics warn that water withdrawals upstream in the Guadalupe River Basin in recent years have curtailed freshwater flows to San Antonio Bay, impacting the world’s only wild flock of whooping cranes and possibly harming important fisheries.
TWDB is the state agency charged with collecting and disseminating water-related data, assisting with regional planning, and preparing the state water plan for development of water resources.
It administers cost-effective financial assistance programs for the construction of water supply, wastewater treatment, flood control and agricultural water-conservation projects.
GBRA provides stewardship for the water resources in its ten-county statutory district, which begins near the headwaters of the Guadalupe and Blanco Rivers, ends at San Antonio Bay, and includes Kendall, Comal, Hays, Caldwell, Guadalupe, Gonzales, DeWitt, Victoria, Calhoun and Refugio counties.
Planning and resource development efforts are carefully coordinated within the broader consideration of regional and statewide water needs in order to fulfill GBRA’s primary responsibilities of developing, conserving and protecting the water resources of the Guadalupe River Basin.
