The $300,000 grant is from the U.S. Department of the Interior's Water 2025 Challenge Grant Program. It will be used to fund one portion of Farmers Irrigation District's conversion of open canals and ditches to buried pipeline.

"This project, one of 19 selected by the Department of the Interior, will enable the District to complete the piping project, with a water savings of up to 40 percent," noted Commissioner Keys. "These grants support local, collaborative projects that will result in more efficient use of existing water supplies."

The grant will be used to install 2.5 miles of pipeline, replacing open canals and ditches, and will allow the District to complete their installation of a total 8.6 miles of pipeline. The project will allow between 1,500 and 3,500 acre-feet of water to remain in the Hood River during the critical summer months. One acre-foot is about 325,850 gallons, approximately the amount of water needed to supply a family of four with enough water for one year.

The Water 2025 Challenge Grant Awards, administered by the Bureau of Reclamation, provide local irrigation districts throughout the West with matching funds to support a variety of projects to make more efficient use of existing water supplies through water conservation, efficiency and water market projects. The Challenge Grant program focuses on meeting the goals identified in Water 2025: Preventing Crises and Conflict in the West. In late June, Interior Secretary Gale Norton approved more than $4 million dollars in water conservation grants under the Water 2025 Challenge Grant Program. President George W. Bush has requested $21 million for the initiative in Fiscal Year 2005.