GBRA To Purchase Vintage Water Rights

The Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority (GBRA) Board of Directors approved the purchase of vintage San Marcos River water rights from the family of the late Ed Cape, who was a former GBRA general manager and was instrumental in getting Canyon Reservoir constructed in the early 1960s.

The two purchased water rights are among the oldest on the San Marcos River dating back to September 1985 and May 1905.  Totaling approximately 30 acre-feet (ac/ft.) per year, the directors approved the purchase price of $8,500 per ac/ft. from Thornton Family Investments, L.P., (J.R. Thornton, Mary Louise Cape Thornton, Robert Edward Thornton and Russell Cape Thornton).

“This water rights purchase is significant for a number of reasons, with one of the most significant being that priority dates that old will GBRA ‘standing’ in almost any water right issue that comes up on the San Marcos River,” Bill West, Jr., GBRA general manager said.

West explained that the water rights represented a diversion of 70 ac/ft. annually with an impoundment of 10 ac/ft. in Hays County on the San Marcos River near the I-35 crossing. These vintage rights at one time were used for agricultural-based growth in the San Marcos area.

News releases and other relevant information are regularly posted to GBRA’s website, www.gbra.org, on Twitter “@GBRATX” and on Facebook at the page “GBRA of Texas.”

The GBRA was established by the Texas Legislature in 1933 as a water conservation and reclamation district. GBRA provides stewardship for the water resources in its 10-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.