AMARILLO, TEXAS -- Thursday morning, representatives of the Canadian River Municipal Water Authority, or CRMWA, met with Mesa Water representatives to officially close a deal that's been in the works for nearly a year.

Now, the deal has been sealed. CRMWA officials closed Thursday morning on the $103 million purchase of Mesa Water holdings on some 211,000 acres in the Texas Panhandle. Those rights will help supply eleven Panhandle cities with water for generations to come, including Amarillo. Also happening during Thursday's official signing, the City of Amarillo purchased some 34,000 acres of CRMWA's newly acquired acreage. The water rights on those acres now belong to the City of Amarillo and will be designated solely to providing water for the city residents.

"I've tried to sell that water downstate, to Dallas primarily and I would almost have a deal made and something happened and didn't finish," said Boone Pickens with Mesa Water Inc. "Then Jim Simms called me and said you know, Meredith is drying up and said we really need the water in the Panhandle so he said let's talk about it and I said sure, let's talk about it."

City Manager, Jarrett Atkinson also said this deal means Amarillo won't have to keep placing a burden on Lake Meredith for water.