Aurora secures more water with Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding
The City of Aurora continues its efforts to secure drinking water for its growing population as Colorado continues to combat drought mixed with municipalities working to access available sources to water. As part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Aurora will receive $5 million to help secure more water.
"Given all the challenges of the Colorado River Basin, Aurora is front and center and taking a lead not just in water conservation but also the reuse of water," said Mike Coffman, Mayor of Aurora.
Elected Republicans and Democrats like Coffman, Congressman Jason Crow and even Assistant Secretary for Water and Science Tanya Trujillo gathered in eastern Aurora to celebrate the expansion of the Binney Water Treatment Plant and the water Aurora will soon be routed to the city.
"I don't think people are really grasping to the extent that we are in a crisis in terms of water supply," Coffman said.
With the money allocated from the federal government Aurora plans to drill for more water under the South Platte River north of the city. The method will allow Aurora to pump water into their city that has already filtered naturally through the soil. Instead of pulling from rivers, Aurora will now be able to pull from water underground.
"There is no clearer illustration of the impact of those investments than this facility right here and the millions of dollars that are going into new wells that will create new wells and new water for the residents of Aurora," Crow said.
Trujillo said it was important that the federal money not only help secure more drinking water for growing populations but that it is also applied to methods that are sustainable and permit the reuse of water.
"Water is life. It is essential. It fuels our economies. It is essential for families and farms. This is exactly the type of project every city in the country should be working on," Trujillo said.
Many municipalities in Colorado are positioning themselves to secure more drinking water, an issue that CBS News Colorado has covered in depth for many years now. Those projects include the City of Thornton's fight with Larimer County to pump water from the Poudre River to Thornton. The coverage also has included the positioning of more than a dozen northern Colorado towns to build a new reservoir north of Fort Collins.
Elected officials said it is important to use the funding to secure more clean and reusable water for the growing Colorado population.
"The history of the west is the history of water. It is how we developed our communities, it is how we developed our agriculture. So much of our history is tied up in water quality and quantity and that hasn't changed as many people have moved here to Colorado. Water is a critical issue," Crow said.
