The United States Department of the Interior said Wednesday that it is investing $514 million into five water infrastructure – conveyance and storage – projects in four Western states.

The projects, the Interior Department said, will help bring clean drinking water to recipient communities in California, Colorado, Idaho and Washington state.

Colorado's Arkansas Valley Conduit project won $250 million, which was the largest single award, the department said. When complete, the project will replace the area's radionuclide-contaminated groundwater sources, meet current drinking water standards, bring safe drinking water to about 50,000 people in 39 rural communities along the Arkansas River and provide as much as 7,500 acre-feet (more than 2.4 billion gallons) of water per year from Pueblo Reservoir near Pueblo, Colorado.

• $129 million for the Sites Reservoir Project, which will see development of 1.5 million acre-feet of new water storage on the Sacramento River near Maxwell, California. The water will flow into the reservoir and then out again to the river system via existing canals, a new pipeline and the Colusa Basin Drain;
• $125 million for the B.F. Sisk Dam Raise and Reservoir Expansion Project in California's Central Valley, a project that will eventually see the development of about 130,000 acre-feet of additional water storage;
• $7 million for Idaho's Anderson Ranch Dam Raise Project, which will raise the dam vy six feet and add 29,000 acre-feet of water storage capacity; and
• $3 million for the Yakama Nation's and Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife's Cle Elum Pool Raise Project, which will increase reservoir capacity by 14,600 acre-feet.