WASHINGTON, DC – Congressman George Miller (D-Martinez) has introduced new water legislation to help the City of Pittsburg and five other Bay Area communities increase their municipal water supplies through innovative water recycling projects.

Pittsburg and other communities have already expended a great deal of time and effort on developing water recycling projects to help them to meet some of their municipal water but a key federal water agency has refused to authorize the projects. Water recycling offers great potential to states like California that suffer periodic droughts and have limited fresh water supplies.

Miller’s bill would establish a partnership between the federal government and local communities to implement a regional water recycling program in the Bay Area. In addition to Pittsburg, the bill would help Antioch, Palo Alto, the North Coast County Water District, Redwood City, and Gilroy.

Miller is the former Chairman of the House Resources Committee, which has jurisdiction over water recycling, and is a longstanding proponent of water recycling as a means of drought-proofing California.

“It only takes a small federal investment in the Bay Area Water Recycling Program to yield massive dividends to our region over time,” said Miller. “And my bill would authorize just that type of key investment. Every gallon of recycled water that goes towards irrigating a golf course or highway median – or for commercial or industrial use – is one gallon less of water that we would have had to have taken from the deeply troubled Bay-Delta.

“We should encourage communities that are trying to meet water demands with innovative technologies,” Miller added. “These projects are the future of water supply, and they're a fiscal and environmental win-win.”

Miller’s bill, “The Bay Area Regional Water Recycling Program Projects Authorization Act of 2006,” authorizes the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to participate in the six Bay Area Regional Water Recycling Program projects that are closest to completion. Each community with a project will be eligible to receive 20% of the project's construction cost. Projects included in Miller’s bill are located in:

Pittsburg and Antioch through the Delta Diablo Sanitation District;

Palo Alto;

The North Coast County Water District;

Redwood City in partnership with the South Bayside System Authority; and

Gilroy, in partnership with the Santa Clara Valley Water District.

Constructing all six of these projects is currently estimated to bring online nearly 10,000 acre-feet per year of reliable dry-year water supply. To produce the same amount of water with a traditional dam and reservoir project, you would need a dedicated facility that stored 47,500 acre-feet of water. An acre-foot of water is the amount of water required to cover an acre to the depth of one foot.

In 1992, Miller helped to put the tools for federal-local water recycling partnerships in place with the Reclamation Projects Authorization and Adjustment Act of 1992, which not only included his historic Central Valley Project Improvement Act but featured a provision now known simply as the “Title XVI” water recycling program. But Miller said that the Bureau has refused to authorize any new projects under this title even though local communities have met all their responsibilities under the law.

Miller’s new bill, which was introduced on Wednesday, amends the existing Title XVI program to include the Bay Area projects. His legislation develops on an earlier bipartisan, bicameral proposal introduced by Rep. Grace Napolitano (D-CA), Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), and Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA).

The new bill is H.R. 6218 and has been referred to the House Committee on Resources.

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