Amador County – When the dust settles on federal stimulus funding numbers for California, the Amador Water Agency should expect to be in a stiff competition for water and wastewater project funding. AWA Financial Services Manager Michael Lee attended the California economic stimulus workshop January 22nd in Sacramento and heard some rough numbers. He said at the time it looked like California would get 10 percent of the $800 billion economic stimulus package, or $80 billion. Roughly 1 percent of that would toward state-wide water and wastewater projects. Lee said that could be $500 million to $800 million, but that number might increase. He will report to the AWA board of directors at its next meeting, February 12th, when they will discuss projects they are targeting to be ready for stimulus funding consideration. He said the USDA, the Regional Water Quality Control Board and the Department of Public Health will have state offices that could dispense the funding. “With water and wastewater, you have to compete for it,” Lee said. “It’s based on what the projects are putting forth, the severity.” He said if projects are helping small communities that are failing, they have a better chance. He said “it would be a lot better if we were just given our fair share of the pie, but we are asking for a fairly good chunk of the pie for a county our size.” Amador will compete with the state, including counties the size of San Francisco. Lee said the AWA has “5 good priority projects that we think can be moved forward to constructability fairly quickly.” Those are the Gravity Supply Line to serve the Central Amador Water Project; and improvement of the Lake Camanche Water System with a new tank, well and piping. Another is improvement to the Buckhorn Water Treatment Plant backwash and byproducts systems. Also, a project on the list would work on a leach field at Gala Manor. A fifth priority project would be to place a small diameter pipeline in the Amador Canal. Lee said the priority projects would have to be ready to construct this summer. Story Jim Reece
Thursday, 05 February 2009 21:51
Amador Water Agency: Stimulus Funding
Amador County – When the dust settles on federal stimulus funding numbers for California, the Amador Water Agency should expect to be in a stiff competition for water and wastewater project funding. AWA Financial Services Manager Michael Lee attended the California economic stimulus workshop January 22nd in Sacramento and heard some rough numbers. He said at the time it looked like California would get 10 percent of the $800 billion economic stimulus package, or $80 billion. Roughly 1 percent of that would toward state-wide water and wastewater projects. Lee said that could be $500 million to $800 million, but that number might increase. He will report to the AWA board of directors at its next meeting, February 12th, when they will discuss projects they are targeting to be ready for stimulus funding consideration. He said the USDA, the Regional Water Quality Control Board and the Department of Public Health will have state offices that could dispense the funding. “With water and wastewater, you have to compete for it,” Lee said. “It’s based on what the projects are putting forth, the severity.” He said if projects are helping small communities that are failing, they have a better chance. He said “it would be a lot better if we were just given our fair share of the pie, but we are asking for a fairly good chunk of the pie for a county our size.” Amador will compete with the state, including counties the size of San Francisco. Lee said the AWA has “5 good priority projects that we think can be moved forward to constructability fairly quickly.” Those are the Gravity Supply Line to serve the Central Amador Water Project; and improvement of the Lake Camanche Water System with a new tank, well and piping. Another is improvement to the Buckhorn Water Treatment Plant backwash and byproducts systems. Also, a project on the list would work on a leach field at Gala Manor. A fifth priority project would be to place a small diameter pipeline in the Amador Canal. Lee said the priority projects would have to be ready to construct this summer. Story Jim Reece
