On Wednesday March 25, Congressional legislation that will provide $61.5 million for the cleanup of local groundwater passed the House of Congress and is soon expected to become law. If signed by the President, H.R. 146 will designate $50 million to the Water Quality Authority and another $11.5 million to Central Basin, all for cleaning up the groundwater of the San Gabriel Aquifer through the Water Quality Protection Project. Today, the Whittier Daily News ran a great opinion piece that emphasized the importance of this groundwater cleanup project to the region.

About H.R. 146: This bill is part of a larger omnibus bill that would authorize a wide range of environment protection programs within the Department of the Interior and the Department of Agriculture, particularly in the areas of watershed management and restoration.  Specifically, a section of this bill includes authorization for $61.5 million for groundwater cleanup through the Water Quality Protection Project (WQPP). Of that, Central Basin will receive $11.5 million and San Gabriel Basin Water Quality Authority will receive $50 million to continue operating the WQPP.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 27th, 2009 at 3:35 pm and is filed under Central Basin News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.