Update on projects supported by Proposition 68 funds from Department of Water Resources, Part 1
Last updated 10/23/2024 at 2:02pm
You might recall the celebration a couple of years ago when the Borrego Water District announced its receipt of $6.1 million in grant funding from the state Department of Water Resources (DWR) in order to implement groundwater management as required by SGMA (the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act of 2014). We refer to this as the Prop 68 Grant because most of the funds came from that bond. Work has been progressing steadily on the Component projects of the grant, and now is a good time to report on progress.
Borrego was unusual – as usual! – in how it proposed that the money be allocated. Instead of BWD putting forth one massive project, as other basins proposed, BWD General Manager Geoff Poole canvassed community organizations to identify possible projects, and a large group of stakeholders assessed each organization’s proposal based on criteria set by DWR.
The following grant Components were put forward to DWR and awarded funds; they are grouped according to which organization implements the Component’s tasks. This article will describe the first Component, of BWD’s tasks – stay tuned for the next Sun to see the rest.
BORREGO WATER DISTRICT – will receive $1.7 million total. As a local government agency, it is the formal signatory of the agreement with DWR.
BWD has completed work on one task, to build new water quality monitoring wells near the wastewater treatment plant ($206K).
A second task, installing Advanced Meter Infrastructure on all customer’s meters ($1.3M), is in process: about 100 automatic meters have recently been installed in a pilot program; work is beginning now, by a company called Metron, to install the advanced meters on the other 2,100 or so connections to BWD pipelines.
Finally, BWD was granted $250K to administer all the Components of the Prop 68 grant.