Dateline: April 29, 2004

State approves $300k loan to water district

AUSTIN – The Texas Water Development Board (TWDB) last Wednesday approved financial assistance in the amount of $300,000 to the Panhandle Groundwater Conservation District (PGCD) to purchase approved agricultural water conservation equipment. 

The funds are available through the TWDB’s Agricultural Water Conservation Loan Program.  Under this program, the TWDB can make loans to lender districts such as the Panhandle Groundwater Conservation District.  In turn, the lender districts make loans to individual borrowers (farmers, ranchers, etc.) to purchase and install more efficient irrigation equipment on private property.

The PGCD will utilize these funds to make loans to individual borrowers for the purchase of center pivot irrigation systems.

“We are very pleased to receive this loan,” says District General Manager, C. E. Williams.  “We are moving from furrow to center pivot irrigation and are seeing a great increase in water efficiency.”

The PGCD jurisdictional area covers all or parts of nine counties in the Texas Panhandle, including Donley, Carson, Gray, Roberts, Armstrong, Potter, Hutchinson, Hemphill, and Wheeler. The area covers 6,378 square miles or 4,150,136 acres.

The district has 967,000 cultivated acres of which 281,500 are irrigated. Principal crops in the district are wheat, grain sorghum, corn, and sunflowers.

Interest on the individual loans will be 2.05 percent with 20 percent down. For more information or to receive a loan application, contact the PGCD office, 201 W. Third Street, White Deer, Texas, or call 806-883-2501.

The TWDB is the state agency charged with collecting and disseminating water-related data, assisting with regional planning, and preparing the State Water Plan for the development of the state’s water resources, and administering cost-effective financial programs for the construction of water supply, wastewater treatment, flood control, and agricultural water conservation projects.