This bill amends the Bureau of Reclamation's authority to carry out emergency work to include certain urban canals of concern and amends certain cost-sharing provisions.
Specifically, the bill reclassifies Reclamation's urban canals of concern as emergency extraordinary maintenance and operation work necessary to ensure the continued safe, dependable, and reliable delivery of project benefits. An urban canal of concern conveys water through a densely populated urban area and the canal's failure would result in the loss of life and property in the vicinity of the failure.
As emergency work, Reclamation may provide federal funds to an urban canal of concern project on a non-reimbursable basis sufficient to cover 35% of the cost. The bill further specifies that reimbursable funds provided under this provision must be considered a nonfederal source of funds for purposes of federal grant cost-sharing requirements.