Norton Will Pass Out $2.8M in Area Water Conservation Grants

By Todd Hollingshead, The Salt Lake Tribune

Oct. 19–OREM — U.S. Interior Secretary Gale Norton will be at Orem’s Mount Timpanogos Park today encouraging water conservation by presenting the Water 2025 Challenge Grant Awards.

Norton will dish out more than $2.8 million in grants to help fund 11 conservation projects in Utah and one in Idaho.

Mark Limbaugh, assistant secretary for water and science for the Interior Department, will join Norton for the 1:30 p.m. event at the Orem park, which is two miles up Provo Canyon along Highway 189.

Norton and Limbaugh will recognize the following recipients with the listed grant amounts:

–Bear River Small Irrigators Inc., $123,184.

–Davis and Weber Counties Canal Co., $245,599.

–Wellsville-Mendon Conservation District, $215,998.

–Ashley Valley Reservoir Co., $300,000.

–Duchesne County Water Conservancy District, $162,790.

–Metropolitan Water District of Salt Lake and Sandy, $300,000.

–Payson City and Strawberry Highline Canal Co., $300,000.

–Sandy City, $300,000.

–Sevier River Water Users Association, $247,540.

–Springville Irrigation District, $91,300.

–Washington County Conservation District, $224,940.

–Preston Whitney Reservoir Co. in Idaho, $300,000.

Interior’s Challenge Grant Award Program will save roughly 68,000 acre-feet of water each year from these 12 projects. They represent nearly $7 million in water improvements.

The grants are administered by the Bureau of Reclamation and provide matching funds to local water or irrigation district projects to conserve water and increase water-use efficiency.

Sandy water officials said they will tap their grant to help enclose 1.25 miles of an open Bell Canyon irrigation channel, a project that will save an estimated 330 acre-feet of water a year.

“It’s kind of a win-win for everybody,” said Shane Pace, Sandy public utilities director. “[These grants] minimize the conflict in the west on water.”

Sandy also will benefit from a $300,000 grant to the Metropolitan Water District of Salt Lake and Sandy. Officials will funnel that money toward installation of an injection well, infiltration pond and an injection trench to enable water storage in the Salt Lake Valley aquifer through surface infiltration.

—–

To see more of The Salt Lake Tribune, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.sltrib.com.

Copyright (c) 2005, The Salt Lake Tribune

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.