Skip to main content Skip to site navigation

EMWD Honors Congressman Takano with Water Champion Award

Press Release
Water champion award winner holding certificate.

Perris, CA (January 19, 2022) — Eastern Municipal Water District (EMWD) today honored Congressman Mark Takano (CA-41) with its Water Champion Award.

The EMWD Water Champion Award is presented to an individual who shows exemplary service in helping EMWD achieve its mission to deliver value to our diverse customers and the communities we serve by providing safe, reliable, economical, and environmentally sustainable water, wastewater, and recycled water service.

Takano has been a leading advocate for residents of western Riverside County and has worked to secure federal funding for a variety of water and wastewater projects that have directly benefited the region’s residents.

“EMWD sincerely appreciates the longstanding partnership and support that Congressman Takano has provided us,” EMWD Board President Phil Paule said. “Congressman Takano’s efforts to secure funding – and bring our ratepayers’ Federal tax dollars back to the region – have provided and will continue to provide a better quality of life for residents by improving water supply reliability.”

In 2021, Takano prioritized and included a $1 million line item in the 2022 U.S. Department of Interior-U.S. Environmental Protection Agency appropriations bill to help fund the Mead Valley Booster Station project, which will increase reliability and fire flow to nearly 20,000 residents in the community.

Takano has also supported federal funding authorizations for EMWD’s desalination program, for COVID-19 relief funds for water arrearages, and has been an ardent supporter of EMWD’s Perris North Basin Groundwater Contamination Prevention and Remediation Program.

“I want to thank EMWD for not only this honor, but for the ongoing partnership we have established for the benefit of the residents we mutually serve,” Takano said. “I am incredibly proud that our collective efforts will result in a more sustainable water supply future for this region and for our state.”

Past winners of the EMWD Water Champion Award include Senator Dianne Feinstein, Congressman Ken Calvert, Assemblywoman Anna Caballero, former State Sen. Bill Emmerson, former Riverside County Supervisor Marion Ashley, retired U.S. Bureau of Reclamation area manager Bill Steele, and former California Gov. Jerry Brown.

# # #

Eastern Municipal Water District is the water, wastewater and recycled water service provider to nearly one million people living and working within a 558-square mile service area in western Riverside County. It is California’s sixth-largest retail water agency, and its mission is “To deliver value to our diverse customers and the communities we serve by providing safe, reliable, economical and environmentally sustainable water, wastewater and recycled water services.”
More information can be found at
www.emwd.org