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Big stimulus grants go to tiny north state water districts

Posted by: Maven on June 10, 2009 at 6:24 am

From Redding’s Record Searchlight:

Take a right turn off Highway 97 about 20 miles northeast of Weed and you’ll get here, a lonely stretch of mostly national forest land dotted with nearly as many foundations from crumbling vacant homesteads as occupied homes. Even so, Tennant’s 82 residents – outnumbered several times over by mule deer and antelope – are slated to get a $3 million stimulus payment to bolster the area’s ailing water supply, courtesy of federal taxpayers.

In a community where residents are advised to boil water to kill such nasty parasites as Giardia and Cryptosporidium, the new storage tank, pump and well paid for with stimulus dollars will be a blessing, said Marvin Tolbert, the water operator for the Tennant Community Services District. “The ‘new’ water system is 26 years old; they gave it a 25-year shelf life,” Tolbert said. “We’re totally in violation of federal law.”

But the more than $36,000 per person price tag for the equipment is an “egregious” example of the waste of Recovery Act stimulus funds, said Pete Sepp, spokesman for the National Taxpayers Union. “You might as well keep them in a five-year supply of bottled water at that rate,” Sepp said.

Read more from the Record Searchlight by clicking here.

June 10, 2009 · Filed Under Northern California

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