Incentives for Water Recycling and Desalination
California's Metropolitan Water District Has Increased Financial Incentives for Water Agencies to Produce Recycled Water, Recovered Groundwater, and Desalinated Water Supplies
The board approved a “series of refinements” to help water agencies develop and produce recycled water, recovered groundwater and desalinated seawater supplies including:
- Increasing the maximum incentive for water production from $250 per acre-foot to $340 per acre-foot
- The inclusion of seawater desalination projects, replacing a separate desalination program established in 2001
- Adding reimbursable services to the program including technical and financial assistance for local agencies
Since 1982, MWD has provided about $490 million in incentives to develop more than 2 million acre-feet of recycled water and 720,000 acre-feet of recovered groundwater supplies.
“Since 2011, we’ve been working with our member public agencies to identify what actions can be taken to stimulate additional local resource projects and increase future supply reliability,” said Debra C. Man, MWD’s chief operating officer and assistant general manager. “These revisions to the regional program will make local projects more viable and help the region meet the statewide goal of reducing residential per-capita water use 20 percent by the year 2020.”