Deb Haaland Secretary at U.S. Department of Interior | Official website
Acting Deputy Secretary of the Interior Laura Daniel-Davis announced today that over $520 million from President Biden’s Investing in America Agenda will be allocated to revitalize aging water delivery systems across the West. This funding is set to support 57 projects spanning all six regions served by the Bureau of Reclamation, with the aim of improving water conveyance and storage, increasing safety, enhancing hydropower generation, and providing water treatment.
To bolster America's climate resilience, President Biden has secured more than $50 billion for climate resilience and adaptation through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act. He has also established a National Climate Resilience Framework, which promotes locally tailored, community-driven climate resilience strategies.
The announcement was made during Acting Deputy Secretary Daniel-Davis' visit to the Middle Rio Grande in New Mexico. Five projects in New Mexico are receiving a total of $14.7 million in funding for aging infrastructure. Over $10 million of this funding is designated for a realignment project of the Rio Grande channel to improve water conveyance, critical habitat and sedimentation control in an area south of Albuquerque near the Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge.
“President Biden’s Investing in America agenda is making historic investments to provide clean, reliable water to families, farmers and Tribes and to make western communities more resilient to drought and climate change,” said Acting Deputy Secretary Laura Daniel-Davis. “These investments in our aging water infrastructure will conserve community water supplies and revitalize water delivery systems building reliability and sustainability for generations to come.”
Reclamation Commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton echoed these sentiments: “Reclamation’s commitment to ensuring our infrastructure is ready to deliver water, produce hydropower and continue providing recreation is evident in these project selections,” she said. “We continue to use this historic investment from President Biden’s Investing in America agenda’s Investing in America agenda to build drought resiliency and improve our projects to ensure continued water delivery across the west.”
This announcement follows Secretary Deb Haaland’s disclosure last week of a $60 million investment from the Inflation Reduction Act for water conservation and drought resilience in the Rio Grande Basin. These resources will ensure greater climate resiliency and water security for communities below Elephant Butte Reservoir and into West Texas.
President Biden’s Investing in America agenda represents the largest investment in climate resilience in the nation’s history, providing much-needed resources to enhance Western communities’ resilience to drought and climate change. Through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, Reclamation is investing a total of $8.3 billion over five years for water infrastructure projects, including rural water, water storage, conservation and conveyance, nature-based solutions, dam safety, water purification and reuse, and desalination.
