The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced on June 17 funding availability supporting its solicitation of letters of interest (LOIs) from prospective borrowers seeking credit assistance from the EPA under the Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act of 2014 (WIFIA) program for large water infrastructure projects.
In the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2022, Congress provided $58.5 million in budget authority for the WIFIA program to cover the subsidy required to provide a much larger amount of credit assistance. The EPA estimates that this budget authority may provide approximately $5.5 billion in credit assistance and may finance approximately $11 billion in water infrastructure investment.
WIFIA can support groundwater supply and treatment and managed aquifer recharge (MAR). The EPA also is soliciting state LOIs for financing bundles of projects in smaller and rural communities. The LOI submittal period will begin on September 6, 2022, and end on the earlier of the date on which all budget authority made available under this notice is committed or updated.
Learn more from the Federal Register notice here and here.
NGWA’s technical journal,
Groundwater®, will devote a special issue to MAR in its September-October 2022 edition.