$125 million allocated for water recycling projects in California, Utah

The Department of the Interior has announced $125 million in funding for five projects in California and Utah to create new water sources and strengthen drought resilience as part of the department’s Large-Scale Water Recycling Program.

The program was introduced in 2023 with support from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) and encourages large-scale conservation efforts. With no size limit on projects, the initiative is designed to help communities transform unusable water sources into clean, dependable supplies, ensuring they are better prepared for drought conditions.

“Through the Large-Scale Water Recycling program, the department is ensuring that communities in the West have the resources they need to safeguard water supplies and ensure this precious resource is available for generations to come,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said.

As part of the BIL, the Bureau of Reclamation is dedicating $8.3 billion over five years to improve water infrastructure. Projects include rural water systems, water storage, conservation, transportation, nature-based solutions, dam safety, water purification and reuse and desalination. Since the law was enacted in 2021, Reclamation has allocated more than $3.5 billion to support 530-plus projects.

“This effort to diversify our tools by taking previously unusable water sources and turning them into new supplies will be instrumental in managing through drought,” Reclamation Commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton said. “These historic investments are allowing these communities to build and expand infrastructure to recycle large amounts of water to meet growing needs.”

The projects announced in this round of funding are:

$60.4 million for the City of San Buenaventura’s Ventura Water Program, estimated to produce 3,600 acre-feet of recycled water annually.

$30 million for the Los Angeles Groundwater Replenishment Project, estimated to produce 26,000 acre-feet annually.

$26.2 million for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California Pure Water Southern California, estimated to produce 118,590 acre-feet annually.

$10.8 million for the Inland Empire Utilities Agency of California Advanced Treatment of Recycled Water to Enhance Chino Basin Resiliency Project, estimated to produce 15,000 acre-feet annually.

$640,000 for the Washington County Water Conservancy District, Utah’s Regional Reuse system, estimated to produce 28,373 acre-feet annually.

An acre-foot of water is roughly 326,000 gallons, enough to cover one acre of land — about the size of a football field — one foot deep. A typical California household consumes between half an acre-foot and one acre-foot of water each year.

California gets approximately 193 million acre-feet of water annually from rain and snow. However, a significant portion evaporates, leaving about 78 million acre-feet of surface water supply in an average year as of 2020, including water from the Colorado and Klamath Rivers. Of this supply, 28 to 35 million acre-feet are used for agriculture, 7.9 million acre-feet support cities and industries and 26 million acre-feet are used for environmental purposes.

This round of funding from the BIL follows investments totaling $179 million announced in May by the department. It also supports the federal Justice40 Initiative, which seeks to direct 40% of the benefits from specific federal investments in climate-change mitigation, clean energy and related areas to disadvantaged communities that have faced neglect and the effects of pollution.

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