To help support the City of San Fernando’s continued water independence, Congresswoman Luz Rivas has submitted an authorization from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) that could potentially provide $28 million in federal funding for the city’s water infrastructure.
“This authorization is a positive first step,” Rivas told the San Fernando Valley Sun/el Sol. She said the authorization was included in the bill text for the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA), and explained that members of Congress can submit specific requests through WRDA, which authorizes various USACE water projects.
The next step is the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure reviewing and marking up the legislation. Once the bill passes out of the committee, the congresswoman hopes it will soon arrive on the House floor for a vote.
“Since the City of San Fernando relies on local groundwater to meet the needs of their residents, the city plans to construct a new two-million-gallon reservoir, which would increase the city’s water capacity,” said Rivas, who represents the Northeast San Fernando Valley.
“The city has had issues in the past with its water infrastructure, especially because it [previously depended] on importing water from the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD),” she added. If they receive the funding, it would help ensure “that the city’s wells are protected against failures. The goal is to reduce the dependency on importing water from Metro.”
The City of San Fernando owns and operates four groundwater wells (2A, 3, 4 and 7A), which pump water from the Sylmar Groundwater Basin. But in recent years, two of the wells (2A and 3) had to be shut down due to high nitrate levels, forcing the city to spend approximately $5.9 million for about 2,300 acre-feet of water a year from the MWD over two years.
After successfully treating and reducing nitrate concentrations, city officials shut off the valve to MWD water in September 2024 and resumed exclusively using their own water wells.
But recent testing indicates that nitrate levels are rising, once again nearing the state’s drinking water maximum contamination level (MCL) of 10 parts per million (ppm). The high levels of nitrates may be due to the city’s former agricultural and farming production, which were once widespread in the area.
Consuming large amounts of nitrates can interfere with the blood’s oxygen-carrying function in infants and pregnant women, according to the California Department of Public Health, and some scientific studies suggest a link between high nitrate levels and birth defects and certain cancers.
At the San Fernando City Council meeting on July 6, newly installed mayor Victoria Garcia announced they were informed that the congresswoman had formally requested the funding, and noted that city officials were “doing what needs to be done” to ensure the city’s eligibility.
Garcia described it as “the largest federal infrastructure authorization ever written into legislation for our city.”