Amador County – The Amador Water Agency nears the end of 2008 with $517,547 in grant funding from the Proposition 84 Water Bond passed by California voters in 2006. AWA General Manager Jim Abercrombie said on Dec. 4, the Sierra Nevada Conservancy awarded a $270,000 grant to the agency to develop a wastewater recycling plan for Amador County. The money will be used to create a regional plan for re-using treated wastewater for farming and industry. The plan includes outreach to municipalities, county governments and members of the public to identify users and forecast demand for recycled water. lt also will look at the best ways to finance and build infrastructure needed to deliver recycled wastewater. Abercrombie said “Developing a regional plan is giant step toward” the agency’s “20 percent by 2020" goal – that is, recycling 20 percent of the county's wastewater by the year 2020. Abercrombie said: “Looking forward, we need to be getting double use out of our water resources, reducing the demand for new supplies and complying with the water quality objectives for effluent discharge and reuse." He said when finished, the AWA Amador County recycling plan is meant to become a model for other Sierra Nevada communities.

ln late November, Abercrombie said the agency received word that it received a $247,547 “Local Groundwater Assistance Grant” from The California Department of Water Resources. The grant comes from Proposition 84 funds that pay for a “sustainable safe yield analysis and a groundwater management plan for the Lake Camanche Village water system.” AWA's Lake Camanche Village system is supplied by wells and the state has placed a restriction on the number of new homes that can be built at Lake Camanche Village because of questions about the quantity and longevity of the underground water supply there. The grant money pay for a study to gauge how much is there and how long it will last. Abercrombie said the “2 grants are an indication of the success of the Agency's active pursuit of government grants to pay for critical system improvements while keeping rates affordable.” AWA has won more than $8.2 million in grant money in the last 4 years for projects including the Plymouth Pipeline, Buckhorn Water Treatment Plant, La Mel Heights Water lmprovement Project, Gayla Manor Leachfield, Lake Camanche Wastewater lmprovements, and the Lower Bear River Reservoir Study. AWA Financial Services Manager Michael Lee said “ln spite of the recent downturn in the economy, there's still grant money out there to pay for projects that would be very challenging for our rural communities to pay for on their own.” Staff report (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).