Management of the San Marcos Watershed

Community Engagement

The watershed belongs to everyone.

You live in a watershed.

Everybody lives in a watershed. Some watersheds are impaired, which means they need proper management to support everyone and everything that lives in them. The Clean Water Act of 1972 regulates pollution control and water quality for United States waters. A part of that act is the 303(d) List, which details areas that fall below state standards for water quality.

There are many ways to get involved with taking care of your watershed:

  • Join a citizen scientist group, like the San Marcos River Rangers or the Texas Stream Team
  • Donate money or volunteer time to environmental organizations that work on environmental education, water quality monitoring, land conservation, etc.
  • Participate in trash clean-ups on land or in the river. Keep San Marcos Beautiful is a City of San Marcos initiative to organize volunteers for such clean-ups.

The San Marcos Watershed Initative (SMWI) is an ongoing collaborative effort to manage the Upper San Marcos Watershed, which began in 2012. The goal of SWMI is to create a Watershed Protection Plan that addresses threats and provides solutions to protect surface water and groundwater quality. A meeting is being held on Wednesday, June 28 for those interested in the project.

Use the EPA Surf Your Watershed tool to find the watershed you live in. The Surf Your Watershed site also contains data for the watershed and resources for people who are interested in getting involved.

A basin contains watersheds. There are 23 major basins in Texas. The San Marcos Watershed is in the Guadalupe River Basin. When you know which watershed and basin you live in, you can follow community efforts and various laws and bills to become a steward of your watershed, whether or not it is impaired.

Volunteers at the Great Texas Annual River Cleanup in San Marcos, Texas