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Dive Brief:
- The Department of the Interior announced $849 million for 77 projects revitalize aging water supply systems in the west, according to a Dec. 3 press release.
- The Law of Investment in Infrastructures and Employment funding supports projects in Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah and Washington, according to the release.
- These projects will improve water transportation and storage, increase safety, improve hydroelectric power generation and provide water treatment, according to the release. Others will replace equipment for hydroelectric power production and provide vital maintenance to aging buildings.
Diving knowledge:
The projects selected for funding are part of the Biden administration’s effort to make Western communities more resilient to climate change and to address the region’s ongoing megadrought.
A large part of the funding will go to projects that work to bring the Colorado River, in which one in eight Americans is dependentaccording to Vox, back from the brink of crisis amid the region’s worst drought in more than 1,200 years. Fourteen projects totaling $118.3 million will help support the Colorado River Basin, according to the DOI.
New Mexico will receive $143 million to realign the Rio Grande to improve water transport and provide a long-term strategy to manage sediment, while California will receive $204 million to address the structural impacts of the Mendota Delta Channel to the drop in groundwater levels.
“As we work to address record drought and changing climate conditions in the Colorado River Basin and throughout the West, these investments in our aging water infrastructure will conserve community water supplies and revitalize systems of water supply,” Acting Deputy Secretary Laura Daniel-Davis said in the release.
Water infrastructure is a booming industry right now in the US and around the world: CEOs a Jacobs, AECOM, WSP and other large construction companies have spoken of their positive view of the sector in the last calls for results.
