This Week at Interior May 31, 2024

Hi, I'm Jane Rodgers, Superintendent of Joshua Tree National Park, and you're watching This Week at Interior!

This Week at Interior

Secretary Haaland this week led the U.S. delegation to the Fourth International Conference on Small Island Developing States in St. John’s, Antigua and Barbuda. The visit underscored the United States’ partnership with small island developing states, and commitment to advancing their sustainable development for a resilient and prosperous future in the face of challenges like the climate-related impacts of sea-level rise and extreme weather events.  

Interior this week announced more than $30 million from President Biden’s Investing in America agenda for Arkansas and Louisiana to clean up legacy pollution. Louisiana will use its $25 million award to plug and reclaim 540 orphaned oil and gas wells -- Arkansas is receiving a more than $5.5 million award, to plug and reclaim approximately 274 orphaned well sites. The investments will help create good-paying union jobs, catalyze economic growth and revitalization, help protect public health and the environment from harmful methane leaks, and advance environmental justice.

Interior this week announced a $242 million investment through the Bureau of Reclamation from the President’s Investing in America agenda that will bring clean, reliable drinking water to communities across the West through five water storage and conveyance projects. The projects in California, Colorado and Washington are expected to add at least 1.6 million acre-feet of additional water storage capacity, enough water to support 6.4 million people for a year.  

Interior also announced a $179 million investment through the Investing in America agenda for innovative water reuse projects that strengthen drought resilience across the West, increasing water security and resilience across western communities. Funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law through the Bureau of Reclamation will support four projects in California and Utah to help communities create new sources of water to support water reliability.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management this week advanced two wind energy projects offshore New Jersey that, if approved, could generate about 2,800 megawatts of electricity, enough to power almost 1 million homes. BOEM also moved ahead with an offshore wind research lease in the Gulf of Maine to research floating offshore wind energy technology and its deployment. Since the start of the Biden-Harris administration, Interior has approved the nation's first eight commercial-scale offshore wind energy projects, enough to power 4 million homes.

As West Virginia's Canaan Valley National Wildlife Refuge gets ready to mark its 30th birthday this summer, it's already celebrating a 1,900 acre expansion. Thanks to The Nature Conservancy and Land and Water Conservation Fund, the refuge has acquired the Big Cove area, increasing public access to hunting, fishing and recreation, and helping to secure the area’s clean water supply through increased protection of the largest intact wetlands complex in the state.

And our social media Picture of the Week...if it's not one thing, it's an otter...one of nature’s most social and playful creatures, river otters have big personalities and even bigger appetites. Often seen in groups, called romps, they can be observed frolicking, and hunting year-round at Grand Teton National Park.

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That's This Week at Interior!