Item 41 - Washington Well Site Improvements Project

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State of California Memorandum Date: March 7, 2017 To: Arthur Ninojosa, Chief Division of Integrated Regional Water Management Trade L. Billington, P.E. Chieff, Financial Assistance Branch Division of I��r ed Regional Water Management From: elparErr�ent o a r esourc California Natural Resources Agency Subject: Approval of Disadvantaged Community (DAC) Involvement Grant Award for the Santa Ana Funding Area This memorandum requests your approval to award $6.3 million in Proposition 1 DAC Involvement grant funding to the Santa Ana Watershed Project Authority (SAWPA) for the Santa Ana Funding Area proposal titled Disadvantaged Communities involvement Program. Proposition 1, the Water Quality Supply, and Infrastructure Improvement Act of 2014, was passed by California voters on November 4, 2014, and authorized the Legislature to appropriate $510 million for IRWM, of which not less than 10 percent ($51 million) was allocated for the purposes of ensuring the involvement of DACs, economically distressed areas, and underrepresented communities (collectively referred to as DACs) in IRWM planning efforts. On August 1, 2016, the Department of Water Resources (DWR) issued the final Proposition 1 IRWM Grant Program Guidelines (Guidelines) and DAC Involvement Request for Proposals (RFP). The Guidelines present the general processes that are used by DWR to administer the Grant Program. The RFP contains solicitation -specific information for awarding the $51 million, including delegation of the grant approval authority from the Director to the Chief of the Division of IRWM. For this solicitation, DWR requires a single Funding Area -wide proposal from each of the 12 Proposition 1 Funding Areas. DWR is accepting proposals on an ongoing basis with the goal of awarding all DAC Involvement funds by summer 2017. On November 10, 2016, DWR received the DAC Involvement proposal from SAWPA on the behalf of the Santa Ana Funding Area. DWR reviewed the proposal based on the criteria published in the RFP, and returned comments back to SAWPA on December 22, 2016. Comments included a request for the following information: 1) A letter of support for the proposal from the Santa Ana Regional Water Management Group 2) Additional detail and evidence of the known DAC water management needs 3) A discussion on the barriers encountered when attempting to involve DACs in past activities 155(ay7111) D6^tr215S {Rev 7111)