The U.S. EPA received 62 letters of interest (LOIs) collectively requesting $9.1 billion in loans from a wide range of prospective borrowers in response to the Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) program’s 2018 Notice of Funding Availability.
“The more than $9 billion in WIFIA loans requested is nearly double our lending capacity for 2018, demonstrating the critical need for investment in our nation’s water infrastructure and strong support for EPA’s Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act program,” said EPA Office of Water Assistant Administrator David Ross.
EPA received LOIs from prospective borrowers located in 24 states, the District of Columbia, and Guam for a wide variety of projects, including wastewater, drinking water, water recycling, desalination, storm water management and combined approaches. More than half of the LOIs addressed one or both of EPA’s 2018 WIFIA Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) priorities: reducing exposure to lead and other contaminants in drinking water systems and updating aging infrastructure. While the majority of prospective borrowers are municipal government agencies, other prospective borrowers include small communities, public-private partnerships, corporations and a tribe. See the full list of letters of interest submitted.
EPA is currently evaluating the submitted letters of interest for project eligibility, credit worthiness, engineering feasibility, and alignment with WIFIA’s statutory and regulatory criteria. Through this competitive process, EPA selects projects it intends to finance and invites them to submit a formal application this fall.