The WateReuse Association sent a stakeholder letter last week to the leaders of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee and the House Natural Resources Committee urging support for the reauthorization of the Bureau of Reclamation’s Title XVI Water Reclamation and Reuse competitive grant program authorized in the 2016 Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation (WIIN) Act (Title XVI-WIIN). The stakeholder letter was signed by 57 western utilities, as well as 11 national organizations and 8 state and regional non-governmental organizations.

Title XVI is the only federal program focused on funding water recycling projects in the western states, and with enactment of the FY 2019 Energy and Water Appropriations bill, the $50 million authorization for Title-WIIN has been reached. Therefore, it is critical to reauthorize Title XVI-WIIN to support the continued development of water reuse in the West and the development of drought-proof water supplies.

There are currently 44 Title XVI-WIIN eligible projects awaiting assistance, with a total of $528 million in eligible federal cost-share. To address the federal cost-share demand, the letter urges that Title XVI-WIIN be reauthorized at $250 million over five years, paid for by deauthorizing “inactive” Title XVI projects following a similar deauthorization process Congress enacted for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers projects in the 2014 Water Resources Reform and Development Act. Currently, the federal cost-share for projects that have never received funding or have not received funding in the past ten years is approximately $200 million. Under the proposal, sponsors of projects listed for deauthorization would have a transparent and public process to submit information demonstrating the project’s active status to the Bureau of Reclamation with a request to revoke the deauthorization.

The stakeholder letter also noted that the WIIN 2016 authorizations for the desalination program ($30 million) and western water storage funds ($335 million) expired with the enactment of the FY 2019 Energy and Water Appropriations measure. The stakeholders support the reauthorization of these programs as water storage and desalination projects work in tandem with water recycling projects to ensure that communities across the West have safe, secure, and sustainable water supplies.