Ohio Awarding Water, Sewer Stimulus Funds

The Ohio Department of Development is taking requests for a slice of nearly $12 million in federal stimulus assistance aimed at funding water and sanitary sewer projects.

The department this week began accepting applications for $11.6 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act Community Development Block Grant Program funds. That program is a $1 billion national initiative that’s part of $13.6 billion earmarked for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The state said it’s looking to award to local governments up to $500,000 for public infrastructure improvements and $100,000 for on-site improvements. Projects must be advanced enough to start construction within four months and serve primarily residential needs. The money is to be distributed following the approval of a federal amendment to the program that will be submitted this month.

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Source: bizjournals/dayton

Oil-Shale Projects in Utah to Slurp Up Agricultural Water Rights

By Arthur Raymond, Deseret News

The virtual non-existence of available water rights in the bone-dry southern reaches of Utah will not hobble possible oil shale mining and nuclear power development projects, according to testimony delivered by industry insiders and state officials to a legislative interim committee Wednesday.

Utah state engineer Kent Jones told the committee that the state’s allocation of water rights in the Uintah Basin is essentially maxed out, and either effort would require obtaining water rights in control of someone else.

“Any use of water in the Colorado River Basin will have to be done based on existing rights,” Jones said.

Utah Division of Water Resources director Dennis Strong said that issue would not place a constraint on potential large-volume water uses, like oil shale processing or nuclear power generation, since they could obtain the rights from current holders in the agriculture business.

“We make those choices all the time,” Strong said. “We’ve made them on the Wasatch Front a lot. Instead of growing crops … we grow houses.”

But University of Utah student Tim DeChristopher, awaiting trial for disrupting a Bureau of Land Management oil and gas lease auction last winter, countered in his testimony that the fight over existing rights will wreak havoc on rural communities and small agri-business owners who will be outgunned by deep-pocketed energy developers.

The shift in water control from agriculture to industry is a move, DeChristopher said, that would abandon the interests of rural communities.

“What we’re looking at doing is sacrificing our local agriculture here in Utah,” DeChristopher said. “I would challenge anyone on this committee to make that statement … that Utah should be taking away water rights from our farmers and giving them to oil companies.”

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Source:  Deseret News