There have been some concerns that a bill that has just passed out of the legislature, SB-670, would put a halt to a pilot project planned by the Nevada Irrigation District.  However, district officials say they're satisfied with the wording of the bill, and have just begun the process of fulfilling California Environmental Quality Act requirements regarding the project.  It would filter mercury out of water using a suction dredge at Combie reservoir.  N-I-D General Manager, Ron Nelson, says the pilot project is moving along.

“We’re just releasing now the environmental documents for public review, that’ll be out for the public to look at for the next 30 plus or minus days and we’ll take all the public comments from that and hold a public hearing and then we should be working our way through that part o the project.”

Nelson says N-I-D has selected the equipment they want to experiment with.

“We’re going to be bringing that down later this summer or early fall and we’re still looking for some money to scale this project up so we need to find somewhere between four and six million dollars in order to run this pilot project effectively.”

Nelson says he hopes to get federal grant money needed to move ahead with the pilot project.