The Maui News - On Saturday, July 12, Mayor Charmaine Tavares traveled to Washington, D.C., for two days of meetings with members of Congress and senior federal officials from the U.S. Departments of Transportation and Agriculture. The mayor said she planned to discuss water, transportation and renewable energy issues with U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka and Reps. Mazie Hirono and Neil Abercrombie. In her meeting with federal transportation officials, Mayor Tavares is scheduled to discuss the county’s bus system, which saw a 68 percent increase in ridership last year. In a meeting with officials from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resource Conservation Service, Tavares will request support from the agency for the county’s proposed 300 million-gallon Upcountry water reservoir. Initial costs for land acquisition, studies and design for the reservoir are estimated to be around $15 million, and the overall price tag is expected to be between $60 million and $100 million. “It is vital that we reach out to all available resources to help meet the many needs of our county,” Tavares stated in a news release. “Federal dollars for large-scale projects, such as Honoapi‘ilani Highway and the new Upcountry water storage reservoir, will mean a lot to our county’s future.”