Funding adds to initial $2 million federal money
From Staff Reports
The Victor Valley Wastewater Regional Authority’s Subregional Treatment Plants recently received $1.5 million from the Department of Water Resources, according to a news release from the Mojave Water Agency.
The money, which was granted through Proposition 84 funds, will help support the $51 million projects, one of which is in Apple Valley and the other in Hesperia. The projects have already received $2 million in federal grant money from the Bureau of Reclamation. Another $1.5 million is anticipated pending State Legislature approval to move some funding from the final cycle of the program to the current cycle, according to the news release.
“This is great news and couldn’t have come at a better time as we continue to face drought conditions,” MWA Board President Beverly Lowry said in a written statement.
Lowry said the treatment plants were identified as key projects in the 2004 Mojave Integrated Regional Water Management Plan.
“The construction of these subregional treatment plants will expand the use of recycled water in the Victor Valley, saving precious water for residential use,” Lowry said.
“The recycled water supplied by these plants is a vital drought-proof resource that will further bolster the Victor Valley’s water supply needs far into the future,” said VVRWA General Manager Logan Olds. “The fact that we’re wasting millions of gallons of precious drinking water every year to irrigate landscaping is a practice that simply cannot continue, especially in a desert.”
According to the news release, both subregional water recycling plants will be able to recycle 1 million gallons a day when constructed, and will have the future potential to recycle up to 4 million gallons a day — enough to offset the potable water usage of nearly 9,000 High Desert homes.