The Bureau of Reclamation recently announced the selection of 31 planning projects to receive more than $28 million in appropriated funding to support potential new water reuse and desalination projects.
The 31 projects are in California, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas and Utah. The projects also bring a cost-share contribution of $64.7 million, bringing the total investment of $93.7 million.
Reclamation said the funding is aimed at creating new sources of water supply less vulnerable to drought and climate change. Recipients will use the funding to prepare feasibility studies and undertake other planning efforts like preliminary project design and environmental compliance activities.
“These projects currently under development will supplement existing freshwater supplies in urban and agricultural areas in the Western United States,” said Bureau of Reclamation Deputy Commissioner David Palumbo. “The funding announced today will provide needed assistance to communities and entities as they undertake the development of feasibility studies and other planning necessary to facilitate project development.”
The funding is part of the Department of the Interior’s WaterSMART program, which focuses on collaborative efforts to plan and implement actions to increase water supply reliability, including investments to modernize infrastructure.
Funding for the planning and design activities is intended to assist in the development of potential new construction projects that could be carried out under the Desalination Construction Program, the Title XVI Water Reclamation and Reuse Program and the Large-Scale Water Recycling Program.
The Desalination Construction Program provides a path for ocean or brackish water desalination projects to receive federal funding. The Title XVI Water Reclamation and Reuse Program funding is for projects that reclaim or reuse wastewater or impaired ground or surface water and have a total project cost of less than $500 million. Under the Large-Scale Water Recycling Program, Reclamation will provide funding for water recycling projects with total project costs exceeding $500 million.
Give LA’s Dept of Water and Power all the financing and desalination project building possible. They sit atop the Pacific Ocean yet drain surface and ground water resources to the death of the richest natural, wilderness, wildlife, cultural and tectonic-volcanic historical and earth sciences areas found in the Owens Valley of California frequented by worldwide traveling and vacationing communities from around the globe. They also drain water resources from the already overtaxed Colorado River and other US water resources. LA is a natural desert area now modified by golf-course lawns and megalopolitan water consuming populations at the expense of vast high mountain meadow rural areas now rendered dry deserts pocked with drained lake dust bowls blowing 1,000s of miles depositing ancient alkaline and toxic trace minerals such as arsenic in areas never intended nor designed ecologically to incorporate these now increasing substances in soils in addition to harms caused by human exposure and inhaling proved fatal and health damaging. Without close and constant monitoring, repetitive regulation enforcement, and historical, lengthy, on-going litigation LADWP’s conduct is, in general, unscrupulous and insidiously irreparably damaging. The only relief available to the stewards of these priceless, rare resource areas is a complete removal of LADWP irresponsible going concerns and business practices from these fragile areas, and their water resource self-reliance utilizing the endless ocean supplies at their ready disposal right off their own shores.
Give LA’s Dept of Water and Power all the financing and desalination project building assistance possible. They sit atop the Pacific Ocean yet drain surface and ground water resources to the death of the richest natural, wilderness, wildlife, cultural and tectonic-volcanic historical and earth sciences areas found in the Owens Valley of California frequented by worldwide traveling and vacationing communities from around the globe. They also drain water resources from the already overtaxed Colorado River and other US water resources. LA is a natural desert area now modified by golf-course lawns and megalopolitan water consuming populations at the expense of vast high mountain meadow rural areas now rendered dry deserts pocked with drained lake dust bowls blowing 1,000s of miles depositing ancient alkaline and toxic trace minerals such as arsenic in areas never intended nor designed ecologically to incorporate these now increasing substances in soils in addition to harms caused by human exposure and inhaling proved fatal and health damaging. Without close and constant monitoring, repetitive regulation enforcement, and historical, lengthy, on-going litigation LADWP’s conduct is, in general, unscrupulous and insidiously irreparably damaging. The only relief available to the stewards of these priceless, rare resource areas is a complete removal of LADWP irresponsible going concerns and business practices from these fragile areas, and their water resource self-reliance utilizing the endless ocean supplies at their ready disposal right off their own shores.