Westlands Water District has been awarded a $1.8 million federal grant to support projects designed to increase water management efficiency and conservation.
Grant funding will be used to retrofit the district’s buried distribution system that delivers metered water to hundreds of family-owned farms.
Driving the news: The grant comes from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, totalling $1,808,326 through the federal WaterSMART program.
- Through the program, the Bureau of Reclamation provides 50/50 cost share funding to irrigation and water districts, tribes, states and other entities.
- Projects are selected through a competitive process and are designed to conserve and use water more efficiently, increase the production of hydropower, mitigate conflict risk in areas at a high risk of future water conflict and accomplish other benefits that contribute to water supply reliability.
The big picture: Westlands began the first phase of implementing its Advanced Metering Infrastructure Project in 2021, which included installing around 760 groundwater meters with advanced automated metering devices.
- Westlands is the only agricultural district in the world that distributes water through an entirely enclosed system.
- The district’s system has around 1,100 miles of buried pipeline and over 2,400 water meters. The system measures every drop of water and minimizes losses caused by seepage and evaporation.
Go deeper: Westlands will use the grant funding for phase two of the project. The district will retrofit 1,603 manually read surface water meters with advanced automated metering devices.
- The project will increase data collection frequency, improve real-time data to determine if meters are experiencing inaccuracies that can contribute to overirrigation so corrections can be made more efficiently, improve the accuracy of lower flow rates often used for blending in years where the water allocation is low and assist in timely and reliable meter reads to better identify potential leaks.
What we’re watching: Westlands expects the project to conserve 9,600 acre-feet of water and keep vehicles from traveling nearly 6,000 miles.
- The project is also expected to reduce 20,223 kilowatt-hours in energy consumption.
What they’re saying: “Westlands takes pride in investing in innovative distribution system methods and the best available technology to efficiently use every drop of water,” said Westlands General Manager Allison Febbo. “This grant will allow the District to track Westlands’ water deliveries more accurately and efficiently – producing sustainable water savings to the tune of 9,600 acre-feet of water per year.”
- Febbo said the district will begin implementing the project in September.
