Drinking water and clean water agencies are looking to President Joe Biden’s $1.9-trillion COVID-19 stimulus plan for additional relief as many continue to provide service to millions of customers unable to pay their bills.
The five-year, $524-million lump-sum contract is the largest ever awarded by the South Florida Water Management District under the $16.4-billion Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan and the first CERP project for the contractor.
The proposed budget includes $360 million for at least 23 Everglades projects that will provide 672,000 acre-ft of water storage and reduce Lake Okeechobee discharges that have caused toxic algal blooms on the coasts and estuaries.
In 2018, Ehab Meselhe and a team at the Water Institute of the Gulf, a Louisiana nonprofit research group, sat for hours with residents of St. Bernard and other coastal parishes in Louisiana, modeling their potential solutions to coastal land loss.
As the cost comes down for boring water tunnels without major disruption to cities, more and more of these long-lived, cost-effective projects are on the horizon for floodwater storage and pollution prevention
Florida Governor Rick Scott (R) on Oct. 30 proposed to add $50 million in next year’s budget to accelerate completion of the
repairs to the Herbert Hoover Dike around Lake Okeechobee.
