The United States Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) issued an August 16th news release stating that it had received 62 letters of interest collectively requesting $9.1 billion in loans from prospective borrowers in response to the agency’s Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (“WIFIA”) program’s 2018 Notice of Funding Availability.

EPA states that it received letters of interest from prospective borrowers located in 24 states, the District of Columbia, and Guam.

The WIFIA is a federal loan and guarantee program that provides long-term low-cost supplemental loans for water infrastructure. Such credit assistance can be used for projects such as:

• Drinking water and treatment distribution
• Wastewater conveyance and treatment
• Enhance energy efficiency of drinking water and wastewater facilities
• Desalination, water recharge, alternative water supply, and water recycling
• Drought prevention, reduction, or mitigation

EPA states that the projects for which funds were requested included wastewater, drinking water, water recycling, desalination, stormwater management, and combined approaches. The majority of prospective borrowers are described as municipal government agencies. However, other prospective borrowers include small communities, public-private partnerships, corporations, and a tribe.

The $9.1 billion requested is stated to be nearly double the agency’s lending capacity for 2018. The agency is evaluating the letters of interest addressing factors such as:

• Credit worthiness
• Engineering feasibility
• Alignment with WIFIA’s statutory and regulatory criteria

A copy of the news release can be downloaded here.