Project 7 Water Authority

Project 7 Water Authority, a local government entity headquartered in Montrose, Colorado, operates as a federal grant recipient focused on water treatment innovation and system optimization in the western United States. The Authority does not hold federal contracts; all recent federal activity consists of grants and sub-grants from the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Reclamation and the Environmental Protection Agency Region 8.

Project 7 Water Authority has received two prime federal grants since 2021, totaling $13.6 million in combined dollars obligated. In September 2022, the Bureau of Reclamation awarded a cooperative agreement to test an innovative treatment train for dissolved solids and minerals removal from a high-hardness surface water reservoir. The project compared an advanced upflow pellet softening reactor followed by direct filtration against ultrafiltration combined with brackish water reverse osmosis, with the goal of demonstrating compliance with state and federal drinking water regulations and expanding western water supply portfolios to include previously difficult-to-utilize sources. That award concluded June 30, 2023. Earlier, in September 2021, Project 7 Water Authority received a $219,845 project grant under the Bureau of Reclamation's Water Conservation Field Services Program (CFDA 15.530) to conduct a system optimization review of its operations, analyzing water usage and losses to identify conservation improvements; the project concluded December 30, 2022.

In its sub-recipient role, Project 7 Water Authority has participated in two awards from the Colorado Water Resources and Power Development Authority as of November 2024, both focused on constructing a raw water transmission line and intake structure downstream of Ridgway Reservoir and establishing a new water treatment facility and treated water transmission line serving the Uncompahgre and Gunnison River Valleys as a redundant water source. The Authority's federal footprint remains modest and concentrated with the Bureau of Reclamation and EPA Region 8, with activity occurring once per year or less in recent years.