California’s Eastern Municipal Water District (EMWD) announced that it has received an additional $17.5 million in funding from the United States Bureau of Reclamation to advance its Purified Water Replenishment (PWR) program.
For its PWR program, EMWD will construct an advance treatment facility adjacent to its existing San Jacinto Valley Regional Water Reclamation Facility. The new facility will further treat recycled water through microfiltration and reverse osmosis, resulting in purified water.
That water will then be blended with tertiary recycled water and piped to EMWD’s Mountain Avenue West Groundwater Replenishment Facility, where it will percolate into the local groundwater basin. After at least five years of natural soil aquifer filtration underground and blending with groundwater, the water will be pumped out, cleaned one final time, then used as a safe and reliable drinking water source.
The PWR program aims to increase the quality and quantity of EMWD’s groundwater supplies. EMWD is currently in the design phase of the program.
“EMWD would like to thank the Bureau of Reclamation for its support of this program,” says Phil Paule, EMWD Board President. “EMWD works hard to bring our customers tax dollars back into their community, and this funding is an example of those efforts. We are looking forward to advancing this important effort, and this funding will play a major role advancing this program.”
The new funding authorization, which is part of the Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act, brings the total federal funding for the project to $27.5 million, making it the largest federal grant funding total that EMWD has received for a single project.
EMWD was previously awarded $10 million in funding for the program in August 2022 through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
