This bill amends a section of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act to reauthorize and expand a pilot program for alternative water source projects and to add a new definition of "intelligent water infrastructure technology." The definition lists many kinds of technologies that qualify, including smart wastewater treatment and collection systems, real-time remote sensors for water quality, artificial intelligence and optimization tools, groundwater banking and other stormwater or reuse projects that use real-time data, advanced digital design and construction tools, nondestructive leak-detection tools, predictive diagnostics, pipe-integrity technologies, persistent sensor networks measuring acoustic signals, pressure, water quality, or flow, and advanced metering infrastructure to support conservation and disadvantaged communities.
The bill changes allowed uses of grants under the program. Grant money may be used for engineering, design, construction, and final testing of alternative water source projects. The bill continues a prohibition on using grant funds for planning, feasibility studies, operation, or maintenance, but makes a specific exception for intelligent water infrastructure technologies: grants may be used for engineering, design, construction, implementation, training, and operations for these technologies, and those costs are not considered operation or maintenance for the purpose of the prohibition.
The bill also updates reporting requirements. The Administrator must send Congress an initial report within 180 days of enactment and then at least annually. Reports must describe projects that received grants for intelligent water infrastructure, describe resulting resiliency improvements, include recommendations to improve the grant program, and the initial report must list projects that applied for grants for intelligent technology but were denied and the reasons for denial.
Finally, the bill changes a funding and date provision in the statute by replacing "$25,000,000" with "$50,000,000" and replacing the year "2026" with "2028."
If you are a water utility, local government, or other eligible recipient, this bill would let grant funds be used to build and install defined smart water technologies (sensors, AI tools, advanced metering, groundwater banking, and related digital tools) and to train staff on them. Planning and feasibility work would still not be covered by grants, except that costs tied to intelligent water infrastructure are explicitly allowed and not counted as operation or maintenance. The bill requires reports to Congress listing awarded projects, resiliency improvements, and denied applications for intelligent-technology grants.
The bill replaces a cited funding figure of "$25,000,000" with "$50,000,000" and changes a year reference from "2026" to "2028." No publicly available information on total program cost, annual appropriations, or budget offsets is included in the provided text.
No publicly available information.
No publicly available information.