Included in the $460 billion congressional spending package President Joe Biden signed over the weekend, narrowly averting a partial government shutdown, are specific amounts of money earmarked for local projects.
Congressional lawmakers can request funding in appropriations packages for various projects. Requests from Orange County lawmakers, this go-round, include operations and safety improvements on the freeway, renovations for public parks, community infrastructure improvements and help for people experiencing homelessness.
Most of Orange County’s congressional delegation, in this recent spending package, collectively brought back nearly $65 million in federal funding for local projects, except Rep. Katie Porter, D-Irvine, who believes earmarks are a deviation from how government spending is supposed to work.
While this isn’t the only spending package this year — a larger bill, estimated to top $1 trillion and would ensure all federal agencies are fully funded — here’s a look at how Orange County residents may see an impact from it.
Health
Several million dollars will go toward various health initiatives, including $3.4 million to the county government for opioid prevention efforts in Orange County.
The $3.4 million will be used to help “increase opioid prevention, education and intervention services” in local communities across the county via medication, counseling and therapy, perinatal interventions, prevention campaigns and naloxone and fentanyl strips, according to Rep. Young Kim’s office.
Water infrastructure accounted for roughly $8.4 million of the funding earmarked for local projects, with nearly $2 million going to the Orange County Water District’s PFAS treatment plants. These plants remove per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — manmade chemicals that can have toxic effects on health — from local well water. After PFAS were found in drinking water in Orange County in 2019, OCWD launched a program aimed at testing various treatment options for the toxic substances.
The PFAS treatment facility in San Juan Capistrano will also receive around $960,000 to help treat an impaired source of drinking water as a consequence of high salinity and toxic chemicals.
Homelessness
According to a poll conducted last year by UC Irvine’s School of Social Ecology, Orange County residents cite homelessness and the lack of affordable housing in the county as top concerns.
Center of Hope, a 72-unit permanent supportive housing complex in Anaheim, is set to receive $500,000 to develop 90 additional units for people experiencing homelessness, according to Rep. Lou Correa’s office. Managed by the Christian nonprofit Salvation Army, Center of Hope is located next to the nonprofit’s adult rehab center and 325-bed emergency shelter near Ball Road and Lewis Street.
Another $850,000 is set to go to the Illumination Foundation, a local nonprofit that provides services for people experiencing homelessness, to create the Richard Lehn Intergenerational Campus.
The campus, to be located along Bewley Street in Santa Ana, will include a preschool for children and 11 permanent supportive housing units (ranging from one- to three-bedroom units) for families and seniors experiencing homelessness. Eight of these units will be reserved for youth families while two three-bedroom units will be utilized as shared living spaces for seniors.
Several features of the campus include primary care and behavioral health services, as well as benefits acquisition and job search assistance.
Infrastructure
The Orange County Transportation Authority will receive a hefty sum from the federal budget to improve operations on state routes and refine community spaces.
A total of $4 million will go toward improving mobility throughout State Route 91, including by reducing weaving and merging lanes and upgrading on- and off-ramps.
And $3 million will go toward completing the Orange County Loop, a roughly 80% completed pedestrian path that circles around the county for 66 miles.
Earlier this year, state legislators asked the state for increased intervention after another landslide sent debris onto the railroad tracks on the Los Angeles-San Luis Obispo-San Diego rail corridor, shutting down the rail line for about a 34-mile stretch. Track closures in San Clemente due to landslides have been a recurring theme in that vulnerable region, where the train runs along the coast.
A total of $4 million will help finance a study for potentially relocating the rail line in South Orange County between Dana Point to San Clemente to an “inland alignment between San Juan Capistrano and San Onofre State Beach,” according to OCTA.
Estimated to cost $5 million, the relocation study will develop various options for rail line relocation and analyze the environmental impacts and viability of moving the rail inland.
Orange County colleges
The congressional spending package also sets aside millions of dollars for colleges in Orange County.
Cal State Fullerton’s Titan Gateway Bridge — a planned pedestrian bridge that will span a busy campus crossing at Nutwood and Chapman avenues — is getting $5 million.
The bridge, according to Rep. Michelle Steel’s office, will “maximize campus pedestrian and vehicular safety by improving signal timing, traffic flow and freeway access for students and local residents.” The S-shaped bridge is planned to include staircases, an ADA-compliant ramp and barriers to help prevent jaywalking.
Another $850,000 will go to Santa Ana College to renovate old, outdated buildings on campus that are unable to support newer equipment and learning technologies.
Public safety
Last year, Steel and Correa teamed up in requesting $2.5 million in federal funds for the “remediation of hazardous materials and the restoration of the Fullerton Police Station,” according to Correa’s office.
That money, granted in the congressional spending package, will go toward inspection and repair costs for the jail and processing area, women’s shower and restroom area, the men’s and women’s locker rooms, the secure canopy where detainees are brought into the facility, “The History of California” mural and sunken courtyard.
Around $2.7 million is earmarked for the planning and designing of new amenities on Camp Pendleton, including living quarters, training facilities, kitchen and dining areas and vehicle apparatus bays, that will replace an old fire station.