Meadows Foundation lends support to SWT water resources effort

Contact: Andrew Sansom at (512) 245-2205.

SAN MARCOS – A grant from the Meadows Foundation will support an initiative by Southwest Texas State University to protect three vital Texas river basins.

The Meadows Foundation has agreed to provide SWT’s International Institute for Sustainable Water Resources with up to $375,000 to fund studies of the Rio Grande, Colorado and Guadalupe river basins.

Andrew Sansom, director of the institute, said, “We are working to create watershed management models in both the Colorado and Guadalupe basins utilizing the capabilities of the SWT Biology and Geography departments. The Meadows Foundation funding will help develop tools for this purpose and provide additional research on the San Marcos Springs.”

Sansom said the institute will also work with the SWT Department of Political Science to address dispute resolution for water rights issues, particularly in the Guadalupe River Basin.

Through the institute, SWT has also launched a partnership with the National Autonomous University of Mexico to create a major study of the Rio Grande.

“The Meadows Foundation grant will support a study of the Rio Grande from Colorado to the Gulf of Mexico,” Sansom said.

SWT’s International Institute for Sustainable Water Resources was established to help develop sound information and guidance for water resource policy and the management of sustainable water resources.

The Meadows Foundation is a private philanthropic institution established in 1948 by Algur H. and Virginia Meadows to benefit the people of Texas.