California Water News Daily Your Source For Water News in California
Officials from the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD) and the Antelope Valley-East Kern Water Agency are celebrating a key milestone in the construction of the High Desert Water Bank in the Antelope Valley groundwater basin.
The High Desert Water Bank is on a 1,500-acre site on the Valley’s western side, roughly between 280th Street West and 300th Street West and between the California Aqueduct and Avenue A. Water to be stored in the bank will be collected from the adjacent aqueduct and the aqueduct can be used to distribute stored water that has been recovered.
This newly built infrastructure allows MWD to store and withdraw up to 70,000 acre-feet of water – enough to serve the annual needs of 210,000 homes.
MWD is funding the $211 million construction of the project on former farmland owned by Antelope Valley-East Kern Water Agency.
Construction of the stage 1 recharge basins, 10 recovery wells; five monitoring wells; and the turn-in/turn-out facilities from the California Aqueduct have been completed. Construction on the stage 2 recharge basins, another 17 recovery wells and an arsenic treatment facility are underway.
The project is expected to be fully operational in 2027.
