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<br />Agenda Item 19 <br />March 16-17, 2004 Board Meeting <br />Page 2 of9 <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />.' / '." <br />v~":''10J <br /> <br />- <br /> <br />u. S. Department of the Interior <br />Bureau of Reclamation <br />Office of the Commissioner <br />Washington, DC <br /> <br />Media Contact: Trudy Harlow 202-513-0574 <br />tharlow@usbr.gov <br />Program Contact:: Eileen Salenik 202-513-0607 <br />esalenik@usbr.gov <br />For Release: February 9, 2004 <br /> <br />RFP for Water 2025 Challenge Grant Program is Now <br /> <br />Available Online <br />WASHINGTON, DC - The Request for Proposals for the Water 2025 Challenge Grant Program <br />for Fiscal Year 2004 is now available online at www.doi.gov/water2025. <br /> <br />The $4 million Challenge Grant Program is seeking proposals from irrigation and water districts <br />that want to leverage their money and resources in partnership with Reclamation, to make more efficient <br />use of existing water supplies through water conservation, efficiency and water market projects. The <br />program will focus on achieving the outcomes identified in Interior Secretary Gale Norton's Water 2025: <br />Preventing Crises and Conflict in the West, particularly in water conservation and efficiency, water <br />markets, and collaboration, with an emphasis on projects that can be completed within 24 months and that <br />reduce future water conflicts. <br /> <br />"The goal of Water 2025 -- and these challenge grants -- is to support realistic, cooperative <br />approaches and tools that have the most likelihood of successfully addressing water challenges in basins <br />where crisis and conflict are preventable," Secretary Norton said. "Water 2025 is focused on local <br />solutions in partnership with local water users. It is not a big federal program." <br /> <br />The deadline for submitting proposals is April 8, 2004. Selection and award will be in Mayor <br />June with implementation beginning in early August of this year. <br /> <br />Examples of proposals Reclamation is seeking include development of water accounts that would <br />provide a way to market water for other existing needs, including agriculture; retrofitting and modernizing <br />existing facilities to achieve better water management through use of new technology; and canal lining or <br />construction of new measurement devices that will allow for more accurate measurement and accounting, <br />leading to increased efficiency. <br /> <br />Eligible entities include irrigation and/or water districts legally created and organized under state <br />law, within the states identified in the Reclamation Act of June 17, 1902, as amended and supplemented. <br />Specifically, these states are Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, <br />New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington and Wyoming. <br /> <br />-more- <br />