The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is providing funding and guidance to communities to help them develop effective investment strategies, which can include various types of partnerships, to improve their drinking water and wastewater management infrastructure.
Through its WaterCARE program, EPA will spend a total of $500,000 to provide 10 communities with financial and technical support which will include assistance in developing rates, revenue and affordability analyses, asset management practices, water efficiency studies, resiliency assessments, and financing and funding options.
The communities that were chosen to receive this assistance have populations of less than 100,000 with below-average median household incomes, face public health challenges, and/or are able to undertake water infrastructure projects. The results of successful projects will be shared with other communities that have similar water infrastructure development needs.
The WaterCARE program participants are:
- Buchanan County, Va.
- Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribe (Mont.)
- Gatesville, Texas
- Haines Borough, Alaska
- Hoopa Valley Tribe (Calif.)
- Johnston, Iowa
- Lawrence, Mass.
- Selma, Ala.
- Township of South Orange Village, N.J.
- Youngstown, Ohio
The WaterCARE program is one of several initiatives being conducted by EPA’s Water Infrastructure and Resiliency Finance Center, “which works with on-the-ground partners to provide financial technical assistance to communities,” EPA explained.
The Clean Water State Revolving Fund (CWSRF) program, for example, is a federal-state partnership that provides communities a permanent, independent source of low-cost financing for a range of water quality infrastructure projects, which can be conducted through P3s. In connection with this, the center is launching a State Revolving Fund Peer-to-Peer Learning Program with the Council of Infrastructure Financing Authorities and engaging in other SRF outreach on state-of-the-art practices.
The center is conducting a Water Infrastructure Public-Private Partnership and Public-Public Partnership Study and local government training with the University of North Carolina Environmental Finance Center and West Coast Exchange.
The center is also working with its partners to promote the use of new tools such as EPA Region 3’s “Community-Based Public-Private Partnerships (CBP3) Guide for Local Governments,” which helps communities explore alternative market-based tools, P3s and other funding sources to build and maintain integrated green stormwater infrastructure.
NCPPP
By Editor
February 4, 2016