U.S. to invest about $850M in improving water, drought systems in western states

Dec. 3 (UPI) -- A nearly billion-dollar investment will go to almost a dozen western states for critical upgrades to water delivery and drought resilience infrastructure, the U.S. Department of the Interior announced Tuesday.

"As we work to address record drought and changing climate conditions in the Colorado River Basin and throughout the West," Acting Deputy Interior Secretary Laura Daniel-Davis said Tuesday in a release. "These investments in our aging water infrastructure will conserve community water supplies and revitalize water delivery systems."

Roughly $849 million in a latest round of federal investments will be put toward at least 77 revitalization projects to rehab aging water delivery systems across the western United States and improve drought resilience in Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah and Washington.

Notably, President Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law have been the drivers of more than $15 billion alone in federal investments to western states aimed to better enhance the region's ability to handle worsening drought conditions.

Daniel-Davis called the outgoing Biden administration's investments "transformational" for new resources designed to "safeguard clean, reliable water for families, farmers and Tribes."

According to DOI, as climate change has visibly accelerated over the last two decades, the Colorado River Basin saw its driest period in the region in more than 1,000 years. Federal investments in recent years included more than $5 billion for over 577 projects in just the states of the Colorado River Basin.

The Colorado River Basin -- occupying approximately 250,000 square miles in the southwest Unite States -- will soon see 14 projects with more than $118 million allocated to improve water storage and conveyance, increase safety, improve hydropower generation and provide better water treatment.

Interior Department officials pointed to the ongoing "megadrought" across the region and the critical need to make western states and communities more resilient to the visible and ever-growing effects of climate change.

Among the 77 projects selected for funding are planned efforts to restore canal capacity, sustain water treatment for Native American tribes, replace critical equipment for hydropower production and provide necessary maintenance to aged project buildings.

For example, more than $2.5 million will go toward the implementation of a new modern fire alarm system at the Glen Canyon Powerplant and Visitor Center in Arizona with a system that meets all fire and life safety codes.

A senior Interior Department official was in California on Tuesday to visit the Delta Mendota Canal Subsidence Correction project on the receiving end of a $204 million investment to address the structural impact to the canal from lowering levels of groundwater.

"These facilities are essential to the west as they provide water for families, farms and Tribal communities, while also and producing hydropower and recreation opportunities for communities throughout the Basin," the federal Bureau of Reclamation's Deputy Commissioner Roque Sanchez said on the dozens of new federally-funded upgrades.

On Tuesday, Sanchez was in New Mexico to visit the Lower San Acacia Reach Improvements project which was set to be the recipient of $143 million to realign the Rio Grande River to improve the conveyance of water and provide a long-term strategy to better manage its sediment.

The department also pointed to how the selected projects will be seen in all major regional river basins where the Bureau of Reclamation currently operate.