Local Water Projects Clear House Following Garamendi's Extensive Work

Press Release

The Fiscal Year 2016 Energy and Water Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill that cleared Congress late Thursday night includes a number of local water projects that Garamendi has spent months and years fighting for.

The bill makes substantial investments in local water projects that Congressman Garamendi has been closely working on. These projects include desperately needed levee improvements.

"The Energy and Water Appropriations Bill makes significant investments in a number of local water projects, including the Sacramento River Bank Protection, American River, Yuba River Basin, Hamilton City J-Levee, Suisun Bay Shipping Channel, Lower Cache Creek, and the Port of Stockton. Sites Reservoir's feasibility study also moves forward in this bill," Congressman Garamendi said. "Clearly, when it comes to water appropriations, bipartisanship is still possible. It took literally hundreds of meetings and phone calls locally and in the Capitol, but long delayed water projects are finally moving forward."

The bill requires the Secretary of Interior to complete the feasibility studies for all CalFed storage projects, with a deadline of November 30, 2016 for the Sites Reservoir feasibility study. Congressman Garamendi, working with Congressman Doug LaMalfa (R-CA), introduced a bill earlier this year to accelerate the completion of this study. Sites Reservoir, located in the 3rd Congressional District, is a proposed off-stream reservoir that would store as much as 1.8 million acre feet of water for cities, agriculture, and the environment.

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