SWT hosts 2001 Ed Cape Water Resources Seminar

SAN MARCOS, TEXAS — Southwest Texas State University’s Aquatic Biology Program will host the 2001 Ed Cape Water Resources Seminar beginning at 7 p.m. on Thursday, March 29, at Aquarena Center. W.E. “Bill” West Jr., general manager of the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority (GBRA), will discuss Water, People and the Guadalupe River Basin: What Would Ed Cape Think?

West is the sixth speaker in the Ed Cape Seminar series. Since 1994, he has served as the general manager of GBRA, where he assumes overall management responsibility for GBRA’s 11 operating divisions throughout the Guadalupe River Basin. Under his leadership, GBRA has embarked on a new era of economic and natural resources development.

West began his water resources career in 1970 at the Lower Colorado River Authority. He was promoted to system operations manager in 1974, to water resources director in 1984, and in 1986 was named executive director of natural resources. At LCRA, West participated throughout the Texas Water Commission adjudication of the Colorado River initiated in the early 1970s.

West graduated from Texas A&M University in 1970 with a bachelor’s degree in agricultural engineering. He is past president of the Texas Water Conservation Association and a member of the TWCA Board, chairman of the Texas Water Forum, and a member of the National Water Association, among others.

The Ed Cape Water Resources Seminar is held in honor of Edward Mathew Cape. Cape was the second general manger of the GBRA, taking over its management in 1938. He was an attorney, banker and rancher in San Marcos, earning a degree in civil engineering from Texas A&M in 1910 and an LL.B. from Valparaiso University in Indiana in 1912.

He became president of State Bank and Trust of San Marcos in 1935, the same year he was appointed to the GBRA Board of Directors. Cape remained as general manager of GBRA until 1960. Under his guidance, GBRA became a dynamic, resourceful and beneficial agency of management of the surface waters of the basin. Cape was instrumental in securing and developing Canyon Dam and Reservoir, which controls flooding and conserves waters in the Guadalupe River.