Brady PieperThe federal government is investing over half a billion dollars to enhance drinking water infrastructure and capture precipitation for drought resilience in western states.
The U.S. Department of Interior (DOI) is announcing $514 million in federal funding to support five water storage and conveyance projects around the country. The funding, which comes from the Investing in America agenda, will provide necessary resources for water authorities and conservation districts to bring clean, reliable drinking water to communities across the West.
The federal funding is part of the DOI’s broader effort to enhance climate resiliency and improve Western communities’ access to resources during droughts, extreme weather events and disasters. For this round, the funding will support dam expansion and water conveyance initiatives in Colorado, California, Idaho and Washington.
The largest grant in this round, $250 million, will benefit the Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District for the Arkansas Valley Conduit project. The grant will advance the project, which has already received almost $340 million in federal funding, as it seeks to address groundwater sources contaminated with radionuclides and bring water standards up to compliance. Overall, the project will construct more than 121 miles of pipelines and intends to deliver up to 7,500 acre-feet of water per year from the Pueblo Reservoir.
California will house two water storage and conveyance projects set to receive funding under this announcement – the B.F. Sisk Dam Raise and Reservoir Expansion Project and the Sites Reservoir Project.
The DOI will award $125 million to the B.F. Sisk initiative to enhance the stream storage capability of the San Luis Reservoir, the nation’s largest offstream reservoir. The joint effort, led by the San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority, will create an additional 130,000 acre-feet of storage space at the facility and provide enough water to serve two million people, over one million acres of farmland and 135,000 acres of critical wildlife habitats and wetlands.
California’s second project, the Sites Reservoir Project, will secure $129 million in funding to develop 1.5 million acre-feet of new water storage on the Sacramento River system. Located west of Maxwell, the project will also increase water quality for several fish species and adjust the flow of water through new and existing facilities.
The DOI will expand its drinking water efforts to southwestern Idaho, granting $7 million to the Anderson Ranch Dam Raise Project. Developed in collaboration with the Idaho Water Resources Board, the project will raise the dam by 6 feet to add approximately 29,000 acre-feet of water storage. The new Anderson Ranch Dam would also allow for federal agencies to store precipitation during wet years to supply additional water or hold over for droughts.
The fifth and final grant, $3 million, will be awarded to the Cle Elum Pool Raise Project in Washington’s portion of the Columbia-Pacific Northwest region. In partnership with the Bureau of Reclamation, the Yakama Nation and Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife, the grant will build upon previous federal investments to increase the reservoir’s capacity by an additional 14,600 acre-feet and improve instream fish flows.
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) commits $8.3 billion for water infrastructure projects over the five years, including rural water, water storage, conservation, conveyance, nature-based solutions, dam safety, water purification, reuse and desalination initiatives. In its final two years, BIL will invest approximately $3 billion in additional funding to reinforce America’s water systems.
Photo courtesy Bureau of Reclamation, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
