WaterSMART Program

WaterSMART Grants: Meeker-Driftwood Canal Automation Project

The Frenchman Cambridge Irrigation District in Cambridge, NE will install precise flow measurement and control gates on the Meeker-Driftwood Canal, and integrate them into a SCADA radio telemetry network/controller. The project includes instillation of Rubicon Water Flume Gates and SCADA components. The objective of the project is to eliminate unintended operational spills. It is estimated that the project will conserve 2,273 AF/y.

WaterSMART Grants: Elephant Butte Irrigation District, Renovating Efficient Access to Rio Grande Project Surface Water for the Mesilla Valley

The Elephant Butte Irrigation District will convert 13,540 feet of open canal to corrugated metal pipe and install new lift pumps. Persistent and increasingly severe drought in the area has caused shortages in recent years, and the District has only received its full allotment once since 2002. The project is expected to result in annual water savings of 9,059 acre‐feet, which will allow District customers to meet existing demands while also reducing groundwater pumping, or will otherwise be available for other water users in the area. By improving delivery pressure, the project will also facilitate current and future on‐farm improvement projects, including conversion to drip and sprinkler irrigation systems.

WaterSMART Grants: Irrigation Canal Company

The Irrigation Canal Company is converting 6,200 feet of open earthen canal to high‐density polyethylene pipeline, re‐grading the existing Grande Ronde River channel with streambed simulation material, and installing rock vanes to construct a roughened channel. Once complete, the canal improvements will result in an expected annual water savings of 1,805 acre‐feet, which will allow the Company to provide adequate irrigation water for multiple water right holders, while at the same time reducing the amount of water diverted out of the Grande Ronde River. The Company will also work with the Allocation of Conserved Water Program to obligate some of its water rights to instream flows.

WaterSMART Grants: City of Tacoma Advanced Metering Infrastructure Deployment Project

The City of Tacoma is upgrading 107,223 primarily residential manual‐read and touch‐read water meters to advanced metering infrastructure. The project is expected to result in annual water savings of 2,049 acre‐feet by providing customers with near real‐time water consumption information and improving meter accuracy. Once the project has been completed, the City will require less water to be drawn from the Green River. In addition, water conserved will reduce the need for groundwater pumping in times of shortages and increase the City’s resiliency against severe future drought conditions.

WaterSMART Grants: West Cache Irrigation Company North and South Litz Laterals Piping Project

The West Cache Irrigation Company is converting 2.5 miles of open earthen canal and 0.5 miles of concrete lined canal to pressurized polyvinyl chloride pipe. The Company is also eliminating five individual inefficient pump stations and will construct one centralized pump station that will efficiently pressurize the entire pipeline. The project is expected to result in annual water savings of 1,083 acre‐feet, which is currently lost to seepage and evaporation. Water conserved as a result of the project will be used to ensure that all shareholders receive their water allocations during drought or low water years.

WaterSMART Grants: Colorado River Indian Tribes 73‐19L‐1 Canal Lining Project

The Colorado River Indian Tribes is lining 3,985 feet of a currently earthen reach of the Colorado River Irrigation Project with a geosynthetic membrane covered with shotcrete. Western Arizona is vulnerable to drought, having experienced drought conditions for the past 19 years, and the Tribes rely on the Colorado River as their sole source of water. The project is anticipated to result in annual water savings of 267 acre feet, which will be utilized by the Tribes primarily to meet demands on the Reservation, within the limits of their existing water rights. 

Drought Response Program: Scottsdale Water Aquifer Recovery and Storage Well

The City of Scottsdale, Arizona is constructing an aquifer storage and recovery well to provide a new, drought-resilient, supplemental drinking water supply. Approximately 87% of Scottsdale’s water supply comes from its Central Arizona Project entitlement from the Colorado River and the Salt and Verde Rivers watersheds which are prone to long-term drought. The well and associated pipeline will make available an additional 3,000 acre-feet per year of water during drought years. The project is also expected improve the water quality in the aquifer and provide sustainabilty benefits.

Drought Response Program: Drought Resiliency Using Groundwater Production Wells: Ultraviolet Treatment for Legionella pneumophila Inactivation

The Las Vegas Valley Water District, located in Clark County, Nevada, is installing five ultraviolet systems to treat Legionella pneumophila in five production wells, treating up to 4,033 acre-feet per year so that it can safely be used water supplies. Clark County has experienced drought conditions every year since 2000, and this additional water supply will offset drought-related supply reductions from the Colorado River, which the District currently relies on for more than 90% of its water supply.

Drought Response Program: City of Adelanto Connection to R3 Pipeline

The Mojave Water Agency, located in San Bernardino County, California, constructed a 5,800-foot, 24-inch ductile iron water main that will connect the storage facilities of the City of Adelanto to the existing Upper Mojave River R3 Project. The pipeline will add the City of Adelanto as a direct turnout to the R3 Project, providing a supplemental supply of 2,340 acre-feet per year to reduce the City’s dependence on an over-drafted groundwater supply.

Drought Response Program: Oljato Drought Resiliency Well

The Navajo Nation’s Oljato Chapter will is drilling and equipping a 450-foot drinking water well near the Utah-Arizona border that will be capable of producing 120 acre-feet of drinking water per year. Currently, during dry periods wells go dry and water must be hauled from far distances. This well is a high-priority mitigation project identified by the Nation to stabilize the public water system in Oljato.

Drought Response Program: Groundwater Banking and Conveyance Improvement Project

Rosedale-Rio Bravo Water Storage District, located in southern San Joaquin Valley of California, is constructing 115 acres of recharge ponds, modernizing the Houghton Weir to provide increased capacity to the recharge ponds, and implementing SCADA improvements to provide flow measurements at remote access locations. The project is expected to provide an average of 5,417 acre-feet per year of recharge.

Title XVI: El Paso Water Utilities Public Service Board, El Paso Aquifer Storage and Recovery Using Reclaimed Water Project

This aquifer storage and recovery project in El Paso, Texas will use treated water to recharge groundwater supplies through infiltration, creating 15,000 acre-feet per year of additional water supply to address the impacts of drought, declining groundwater levels, and growing water demand in the area. This project involves the construction a pump station, and expansion and construction of a new pipeline to convey treated water to infiltration basins.

Title XVI: Monterey One Water, Pure Water Monterey

The Pure Water Monterey project will produce up to 8,200 acre-feet of water supply for communities in Monterey County, California, which is currently experiencing extreme drought according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. The project includes collection and conveyance facilities and construction of an advanced water treatment plant. The project will treat secondary effluent from a local wastewater treatment plant, municipal urban runoff, stormwater, and agricultural wash water which will be used to recharge the Seaside Groundwater Basin and for agricultural irrigation.