Investing in Aging Water Infrastructure - Part 2

Tim Hammerich

News Reporter

We reported yesterday on the 150 western agricultural organizations that drafted a letter to President Trump. The coalition urged the president to provide funding for aging water infrastructure in upcoming stimulus packages. The letter didn’t just point to the problems with the current infrastructure, but also some solutions. Here is Family Farm Alliance Executive Director Dan Keppen.

Keppen… “What we advocate for is sort of a suite of things that can be done. Dollars to conserve water, recycle water. If urban areas are recycling their water, that means they're not putting their sites on ag water to use it to satisfy their demand. There's watershed management, a new conveyance or modernize old conveyance facilities - channels and canals I'm talking about. Desalination, water transfers, and then the ground water and surface storage, which are a big part of what our organization's about. But in order to get support for individual components like that, you need to kind of advocate for the entire suite. It's a combination of demand management and supply enhancement is sort of the package that's reflected in the letter that you mentioned.”

Keppen says the response to the letter has been significant, presumably because increased attention on the food supply as a result of the coronavirus.

The coalition hopes that it will prompt swift and deliberate action to address these urgent water infrastructure needs.