Expanding water rights biggest accomplishment for retiring G.M. at CRMWA
HUTCHINSON COUNTY, Texas (KVII) — Finding new groundwater water in the Texas Panhandle is a challenge as water level declines are occurring due to excessive pumping that exceeds re-charge. In this week’s Panhandle Runs on Water, ABC7 News looks at how much groundwater one local government entity has the rights too thanks to efforts from its soon to be retiring general manager.
“Depending on the factors its somewhere between 100 and 300 years, we think,” said Kent Satterwhite, general manager of CRMWA.
A timeframe for how many years of groundwater is available to the clients of the Canadian River Municipal Water Authority in the Texas Panhandle and South Plains. Having worked as general manager for 21-years Ken Satterwhite helped CRMWA expand its footprint on groundwater rights.
“When I became general manager we had around 40-thousand acres of groundwater rights,” said Satterwhite. “Now we have nearly half a million acres which set us up we’ve got more groundwater acres than any other entity in the nation.”
CRWMA is partnering with HDR Engineering and conducting a salt study at Lake Meredith. The findings of phase one of the study are expected to be known in a few weeks.
“Yeah it’s kind of holding its own,” said Satterwhite. “We feel like the salt cedar control and channel projects we’ve done are helping that process. Depending on how you look at it, it’s difficult to quantify at this point were not getting the runoff we used to get. It’s just a small fraction of what we used to get.”
In the fall, millions of gallons of water being lost out of Lake Meredith due to evaporation that increases the salt level here at the lake that’s why CRMWA is moving forward day by on plans with a $750 million infrastructure project to get water from Roberts County to its clients.
“It’s just a redundant pipeline but it’s more than redundancy it’s additional supply,” said Satterwhite. “It will come from Roberts County and go directly to Amarillo and from there it will go on to other member cities.”
Kent Satterwhite’s last day with the Canadian River Municipal Water Authority is on Sunday (Oct. 30). The new general manager will be taking over on Monday.
