Water Supply

The mission of the Corps of Engineers municipal and industrial water supply program is to partner with non-Federal water management agencies and consistent with policy, manage Corps reservoirs to provide water supply storage in a cost-efficient and environmentally and socially responsible manner. The Corps primary general authority for water supply is in the 1958 Water Supply Act (PL 85-500), as amended. This provides the authority of the Corps to include storage space in new and modified projects and to reallocate storage in existing projects, within certain limits. Single purpose water supply projects are not permitted. There are also some lesser used authorities, most noticeably Section 6 of the 1944 Flood Control Act (PL 78-534), for surplus water. The current water supply database shows there is 11.1 million acre-feet of storage space in 133 multiple purpose projects authorized for municipal and industrial water supply. The investment cost of this storage space is about $1.5 billion. The Corps has 366 individual repayment agreements with a wide variety of state and local sponsors covering this storage space and returns to the U.S. Treasury on the average of about $45 million per year in principal, interest and operation and maintenance expense. The “Water Supply 2009 Database” (IWR 10-R-2) contains all the latest data on the Corps water supply program.