 Water Infrastructure){kind=link}
Accelerating water supply planning and implementation
Roseville, CA- Roseville is the recipient of $33 million in low-interest financing from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) program. This funding will accelerate water supply planning and implementation under Roseville’s Water Future Initiative.
“EPA is excited to announce its fiftieth WIFIA loan, which provides a great opportunity to appreciate the successes we’ve had while redoubling our efforts to better communities through water infrastructure improvements,” said EPA’s Principal Deputy Assistant Administrator for Water Radhika Fox. “We’ve seen time and again that collaborating with local partners and investing in water infrastructure can improve public health, protect the environment, create jobs, and support economic growth while addressing key challenges facing the country.”
WIFIA program funding and utility operation funds will advance two critical efforts under Water Future. We will increase the number of groundwater wells and examine how we can expand water recycling over time.
“Water is vital to any community. Having stable infrastructure will increase reliability and continue to spur economic resiliency for Roseville.”
Krista Bernasconi, Roseville Mayor
Despite growing available local water supplies through partnerships and surface water supply contracts, the diversity of our water portfolio will increase reliability, redundancy, and flexibility. In the end, these efforts will protect against climate change, water used for the environment, and additional regulatory constraints on local water management, as well as allow for further prosperity and economic development.
“We are taking a long-term approach to plan and implement a water strategy to serve our community through 2050, “said Sean Bigley, assistant director of water. “What is clear is that maintaining reliability starts with a plan. As important is implementing these infrastructure projects as soon as possible because they can take time, and we want to be ahead of the curve for our thriving community.”
Groundwater Well Sites
We want to double the number of groundwater well sites in Roseville. We currently have six Aquifer Storage and Recovery well sites (technology that allows for banking surface water or extracting it for drinking water.) We will look to diversify where they are located throughout the city to maximize groundwater use throughout our entire service area. It will also aid in regional water supply reliability.
Additionally, we are examining the potential to expand our recycled water program beyond irrigation usage. We only convert about 20 percent of our treated wastewater into recycled water. With the help of WIFIA funding, the scope of this effort includes a filter replacement system at one of our regional wastewater facilities. Alongside that upgrade are our early stages of evaluation for advanced treatment technologies to determine how we might want to expand the use of recycled water to provide further redundancy and flexibility for our community.
While WIFIA funding only covers a portion of the development of these projects, we continue to seek additional funding opportunities. For more information on the Roseville Water Future Initiative, visit www.roseville.ca.us/waterfuture.