The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) received 51 letters of interest, collectively requesting $6.6 billion, from the Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) third round of the funding application process.
“Since the WIFIA program’s inception in 2017, EPA has received requests totaling $21.7 billion for water infrastructure projects across the country – evidence of the urgent need to modernize our nation’s infrastructure,” says USEPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler.
USEPA is offering $6 billion in loans that would help fund approximately $12 billion in water infrastructure projects. USEPA received letters from prospective borrowers located in 21 states, including North Dakota, Utah, and Wisconsin. So far WIFIA loans have been requested in 35 States, plus the District of Columbia and Guam.
For the first time, USEPA announced water reuse and recycling as a WIFIA priority, and several prospective borrowers submitted letters of interest to implement such projects. The funding requests also cover a wide variety of other topics, including wastewater, drinking water, desalination, stormwater management and combined approaches. The majority of prospective borrowers are municipal government agencies, while other prospective borrowers include small communities, public-private partnerships and corporations.
As the next step in the competitive process, USEPA will evaluate the letters for project eligibility, credit worthiness, engineering feasibility and alignment with WIFIA’s statutory and regulatory criteria. The agency will then identify projects it intends to finance and invite those selected entities to submit formal applications this fall. Click here to view the full list of WIFIA letters of interest received by the USEPA.