CRMWA Buys Rights To 9000 Acres Of Water In The Texas Panhandle

CRMWA Buys Rights To 9000 Acres
Of Water In The Texas Panhandle

SANFORD , Texas — The Canadian River Municipal Water Authority is buying almost 9000 acres of water rights from a ranch in Roberts and Hutchinson counties.

Kent Satterwhite, general manager of the water authority, says CRMWA has signed a contract with Ronnie Cox of the Duncan Ranch for 8777 acres in water rights. The water rights are adjacent to the 42,765 acres of water rights that CRMWA already holds in Roberts County . The acquisition of the Duncan Ranch property brings CRMWA's total water rights to 51,542 acres.

The water authority began pumping from their Roberts County well field in December 2002, in an effort to improve both the quality and quantity of the water that comes from Lake Meredith . CRMWA provides water for 11 cities in the Texas Panhandle and South Plains.

Satterwhite says the sale is contingent upon studies that will be conducted over the next six months to verify the quantity and quality of the water beneath the ranch. The deal also needs the approval of the CRMWA board of directors and signed contracts with CRMWA member cities.

Satterwhite says Cox had obtained pumping permits in November from the Panhandle Ground Water District, the body governing ground water pumping in Roberts County . While a number of Roberts County landowners had talked about uniting in an effort to sell their water, Cox and his partners in the ranch remained independent and obtained their own high impact pumping permit.

"He went out and did it on his own," Satterwhite says. "He actually got his. He went ahead and did the work that was necessary to get his done."

The production permit will be transferred to CRMWA following due diligence studies.

The CRMWA board of directors meet this week in Plainview , one of the member cities.

Satterwhite says the arrangement differs from others CRMWA has undertaken in the past.

"We're buying water instead of acreage," he explains.

The new pricing system, he says, is fairer to everyone involved.

CRMWA will pay $13.15 per acre-foot of recoverable ground water on the ranch, Satterwhite says. Recoverable water is essentially defined as 50 percent of the water in storage in the Ogallala Aquifer beneath the Duncan Ranch.

"We bought all the water, but we're only using half of it," Satterwhite says.

Such a move meets the requirements of the Panhandle Ground Water Conservation District's 50-50 rule that 50 percent of the water in storage in 1998, when the regulation was passed, must remain in the aquifer at the end of 50 years.

"There's also an adjustment for water quality," Satterwhite says of the contract with the Duncan Ranch. "That $13.15 could go up or down depending upon the water quality that we find."

Satterwhite says the $13.15 is just about what others in Roberts County are paying for water. He says that when CRMWA bought their initial water rights in the 1990s, they paid about $13.17 per acre-foot. Based on figures released by Mesa Water Inc., a private company that plans to pump and sell their water downstate, and hydrology studies of the area, Satterwhite figures Mesa paid about $13.15 per acre-foot for the water they bought last summer in Roberts County .

"It's a new way to price it," Satterwhite says.

Based on the acreage and the amount of water that CRMWA expects to find there, the deal should figure out to about $300 an acre for the water rights.

Satterwhite says CRMWA is still seeking water rights in the area.

"We'd like to buy another 150,000-plus acres of water rights," he says.

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