Federal Water Tap, November 25: White House Requests $98 Billion for Disaster Relief

The Rundown

• White House requests $98 billion to respond to disasters stretching back more than two years.
• Bureau of Reclamation unveils five proposals to evaluate for Colorado River water supply.
• EPA study finds a common water utility communication method does not prompt customers to take a requested action.
• Senate releases its version of the farm bill.
• GAO assesses data on the Energy Department’s multibillion-dollar groundwater cleanup.
• Small Business Administration expands loan eligibility for post-disaster recovery while it also suspends offers for new disaster loans due to lack of funding.
• Interior distributes funds for water recycling.
• EPA advisory committee on CAFO water pollution will hold a public meeting next month.

And lastly, the EPA releases a draft framework for assessing the cumulative burden of pollution in a community.

“People are desperate for answers and help and hope. They are looking to Congress for action. We cannot let them down. Not now. Not ever. That’s why it is so important we come together to pass a bipartisan supplemental that meets these challenges.” – Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) speaking at a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on November 20 to review the Biden administration’s $98 billion request for disaster relief.

Other senators hinted at the need to build national resilience instead of waiting to clean up after the storms. “We’ve got a system that is not keeping up,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK). “It does not have the nimbleness, it does not have the reflexes that we need.”

By the Numbers

$10 Billion: Minimum cost, over five decades, to clean contaminated groundwater at four Department of Energy sites, according to a Government Accountability Office report.

100,000: Number of applications, at minimum, the Small Business Administration has received for low-interest disaster loans as a result of hurricanes Helene and Milton, according to the White House. The SBA is reviewing applications but not currently offering new loans because funding ran out in mid-October.

$125 Million: Funding allocated by the Interior Department to five water recycling projects. Four are in California and one in Utah. Four of the projects received $179 million from the department earlier this year.

News Briefs

Disaster Relief Request
The White House asked Congress for $98 billion to respond to more than two years of disasters – from New Mexico’s largest wildfire, in 2022, and the Maui wildfires, in 2023, to hurricanes Helene and Milton this year.

The largest part of the president’s proposal is $40 billion for FEMA’s disaster relief fund, which is nearly depleted even though Congress added $20 billion to the pot in September. The fund is for repairing public infrastructure as well as homes.

Other elements of the request include $24 billion for farm losses; $12 billion to the Department of Housing and Urban Development; $4 billion to the EPA for water system rebuilding; $2.25 billion for the Small Business Administration’s disaster loan program; and $375 million for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development program, which works with rural infrastructure and housing assistance.

Colorado River Options
The Bureau of Reclamation will assess five options in a forthcoming analysis of ways to manage the Colorado River’s main reservoirs after current operating rules expire in 2026.

The public reveal of the options before releasing the draft environmental impact statement seems intended to encourage basin water users to negotiate a consensus approach.

Reclamation will release the draft EIS next year. It will evaluate how the five options influence reservoir levels and water supplies in the seven basin states.

One option is, in essence, doing nothing. It’s required in all such analyses. The other options, outlined in extremely broad strokes, combine elements of proposals submitted by upper and lower basin states, tribes, and conservation groups. They differ in how cutbacks are distributed, how water releases from Mead and Powell are determined, and how water conservation is credited.

Farm Bill
In the final weeks of the session, Sen. Debbie Stabenow introduced a new farm bill, a gargantuan, 1,397-page piece of legislation. It influences land conservation and rural water utilities. In its crop incentives, it affects water use and pollution.

The Senate bill incorporates money from the Inflation Reduction Act, intending to protect that source of conservation funding.

The current farm bill expires at the end of the year.

Studies and Reports

DOE’s Groundwater Cleanup
The Department of Energy is spending hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to repair the environmental damage from its nuclear weapons and research facilities.

The Government Accountability Office, a watchdog agency, found incomplete data when it assessed the department’s groundwater cleanups, which are taking place at 13 sites.

“Comprehensive information on the scope, cost, and schedule of groundwater cleanup” was not available for all sites, the report notes.

The DOE agreed with the report’s three recommendations, which relate to data collection, performance goals, and metrics.

EPA Studies Utility Communication by Door Hangers
How can utilities engage customers and nudge behavior?

The behavior, in this case, was finding out more information about customer service lines. Are they made of lead?

The study task was to persuade customers in Trenton, New Jersey, to take a photo of their service line and send it to the utility. One customer group received a door hanger with instructions. The second group received the same door hanger, but with the promise of a gift card valued up to $100 after completing the task. A third control group received no hangers.

Almost no one bothered to act. Of the roughly 3,000 people in the no-incentive door hangers group, three responded. Of the 3,000 people in the gift card group, eight snapped a photo.

Environmental Burdens Add Up
The EPA released a draft framework for considering all the sources of pollution in a community in an environmental assessment of a new project.

The “cumulative impacts” framework is not prescriptive. Instead it outlines basic principles and processes – from data gathering to community engagement – that can inform future assessments.

On the Radar

Post-Disaster Loans
The Small Business Administration provides low-interest loans in areas that are recovering from drought, flood, harmful algal bloom or other federally declared disaster.

New rules will expand the geographic areas that are eligible for such loans. Counties that touch a disaster-declaration county but are separated by a river that is five miles in width or smaller are now eligible. The previous threshold for a “contiguous county” was a river width of one mile.

Islands in island chains will now also be considered contiguous.

Water Pollution from CAFOs Meeting
The council that advises the EPA on agriculture will hold a public meeting on December 6 to continue its deliberations on water pollution from large feedlots, or CAFOs.

Environmental groups had petitioned the agency to strengthen CAFO water pollution standards. Instead, the agency convened a sub-committee, which held its first meeting six months ago.

Registration details for the December meeting will be available on this site.

Federal Water Tap is a weekly digest spotting trends in U.S. government water policy. To get more water news, follow Circle of Blue on Twitter and sign up for our newsletter.

Brett Walton

Brett writes about agriculture, energy, infrastructure, and the politics and economics of water in the United States. He also writes the Federal Water Tap, Circle of Blue’s weekly digest of U.S. government water news. He is the winner of two Society of Environmental Journalists reporting awards, one of the top honors in American environmental journalism: first place for explanatory reporting for a series on septic system pollution in the United States(2016) and third place for beat reporting in a small market (2014). He received the Sierra Club’s Distinguished Service Award in 2018. Brett lives in Seattle, where he hikes the mountains and bakes pies. Contact Brett Walton