Walz Calls on President Bush to Keep His Commitment to Rural Communities Walz Calls on President Bush to Keep His Commitment to Rural Communities

Press Release

Walz Calls on President Bush to Keep His Commitment to Rural Communities

Today, Congressman Tim Walz criticized as "outrageous," President Bush's decision to eliminate funding for the Lewis and Clark Regional Water System in his FY2009 Budget. The Lewis and Clark project will, when completed, provide safe, reliable drinking water to over 300,000 people in a roughly 5,000 square mile area in South Dakota, Iowa, and Minnesota.

"In Minnesota's ‘Land of 10,000 Lakes,' there is one area that the glaciers missed - Southwest Minnesota," said Walz. "For example, Rock County, Minnesota does not have a natural lake and this lack of water availability has a profound impact on economic development in the area."

"I cannot comprehend why President Bush would cut funding for the Lewis and Clark Regional Water System from his budget," continued Walz. "There are communities in southern Minnesota that are so short of water that they literally cannot permit a single new home to be built. We're all in this together, and President Bush's outrageous decision to cut funding for a program that provides water to rural areas hurts our families, our communities and our businesses."

In 2001, President Bush said, "A priority is to work with states on important development projects. And the Lewis & Clark Rural Water Project is a project that will be in my budget, and something that we can work together on."1

"Maybe President Bush thinks no one remembers that just a few years ago, he promised that he would work with Minnesota, Iowa and South Dakota to make the Lewis and Clark Regional Water System a reality, and that he would include it in is budget," Congressman Walz said. "Or maybe he thinks that he doesn't need to keep his promises, now that he's on his way out the door. But I remember, and I intend to work with Republicans and Democrats to make sure that this project gets funded, with or without his help."

Seventeen of the 20 local municipalities that are participating in this project have prepaid $87 million dollars of their local share of the expenses, in order to help keep inflationary costs at a minimum.

Additionally, the three states involved—Minnesota, South Dakota and Iowa—have committed to prepay their share of the project as well.

President Bush's FY2008 Budget requested $15 million for the project. At that level of funding, the project would not be completed until 2051 and would cost more than $768 million.

In 2007, Congressman Walz, in a bipartisan effort with Congresswoman Herseth Sandlin, Congressman King, Senators Johnson, Harkin, Coleman, Klobuchar and Thune, successfully obtained $27 million in funding for the Lewis and Clark Regional Water System.

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