California’s statewide water systems account for $365 million of the new $899 million Bipartisan Infrastructure Law investment in aging water delivery systems across the West. However, this round of funding will not increase statewide water storage.
Tuesday marked the second-to-last round of BIL funding for aging infrastructure Reclamation will announce under the Biden administration – and once it's apportioned, the next administration can’t touch it.
This round’s biggest award goes to the Delta-Mendota Canal, with $204 million to restore canal subsidence and increase capacity for conveyance.
“That's essential to when we get the big atmospheric rivers like we had a couple of weeks ago, so that we can take that water and store it and move it somewhere where we can store it for the droughts that are coming,” John Watts, Reclamation senior counselor to the commissioner, said during a press conference on Tuesday.
Just last year, the Delta-Mendota Canal received infrastructure funding for subsidence corrections, resulting in a 20% capacity increase. The canal is vital for capturing water and conveying it to areas that require groundwater recharge under the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act.
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Design work on the new project should be completed by next summer, with construction contracts coming next fall and awarding of the construction contract by next December or early 2026, according to Watts. The first part of the project will begin with 35 miles of the canal’s upper reach.
Watts joined Shasta Dam staff at the Shasta Dam Visitors Center to announce $65 million for 11 Northern California Projects. The dam will receive $9.5 million to update its spillway, which is currently leaking.
A Shasta Dam technician told Agri-Pulse that the leakage is not a significant loss, since that water needs to be released anyway and is counted in the total downstream flow. Watts said that the leakage is reducing the dam’s water storage capability and can be corrected by replacing the jet valves that control the flow through the spillway.
Shasta Power Plant is also getting $18.5 million to replace its transformers, which are original to the dam’s construction in the early 1940s, according to Reclamation Public Affairs Specialist Michael Burke.
California sued the first Trump administration under then-Attorney General Xavier Becerra after Reclamation proposed raising the Shasta Dam, which would have increased Shasta reservoir capacity by 634,000 acre-feet.
California has "possibly the largest and most complex water project across Reclamation,” Watts said. “The Central Valley Project delivers water to 6 million acre-feet of farmland, and we have a lot of projects like Shasta, Folsom, Friant dam that need major replacements."
He told Agri-Pulse that raising the dam would constitute a “storage project” and is therefore not eligible under this round of funding, adding that it would require a request from the next administration and require congressional approval.
“We'll just have to watch and see what happens with that,” Watts said.
