Long Beach Water Receives United States Bureau of Reclamation Grant

Published on September 03, 2019

Contact: Kaylee Weatherly
Phone: (562) 714-8250
Email: kaylee.weatherly@lbwater.org

Long Beach Water Receives United States Bureau of Reclamation Grant to Increase Water Supply Reliability

$750,000 grant will help build a new well to pump additional groundwater, Long Beach’s most affordable source of water

Long Beach, California – Today, Long Beach Water announced that it received a $750,000 WaterSMART grant from the United States Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) for a local water supply project. The grant will help fund a new 800-foot well to pump 1,250 acre-feet of additional groundwater and build a water treatment facility and booster pump station on-site. The project is supported by a goal in Long Beach Water’s Urban Water Management Plan.

The new well will pump water under the southwest portion of the city. The grant will help fund various project activities including, well design and construction, well equipping, pipeline design and construction, and well operation, maintenance and rehabilitation. Over the next year, Long Beach Water will develop and design the new well plans.

“Long Beach Water is dedicated to finding innovative solutions to improve our resiliency to drought and other climate change impacts to our water supply,” said Gloria Cordero, president of the Long Beach Board of Water Commissioners. “This project benefits our community by utilizing a local and reliable water source.”

“We’re honored to receive this competitive grant funding from the USBR’s WaterSMART program,” said Chris Garner, general manager of Long Beach Water. “This project supports our City’s climate resiliency goals and will help us reduce our reliance on expensive, imported water.”

Long Beach Water currently receives about 65 percent of its drinking water through groundwater, pumped from the Central Groundwater Basin, and 35 percent from imported water, purchased from the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.

The USBR’s WaterSMART grant program provides funding opportunities for water agencies throughout the western United States for projects that prepare and build resiliency to drought and other water supply issues.