Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation (WIFIA)

 

To accelerate investment in our nation's water and wastewater infrastructure by providing long-term, low-cost supplemental credit assistance under customized terms to creditworthy water and wastewater projects of national and regional significance. Funding Priority - Fiscal Year FY 2023: Selected projects shall demonstrate the broad range of project types that the WIFIA program can finance including wastewater, drinking water, stormwater, and water recycling projects. Funding priorities are announced with the release of each Notice of Funding Availability.

Active 66.958 Environmental Protection Agency E - Direct Loans Fiscal Year 2018 Published Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) soliciting letters of interest from prospective borrowers four weeks following appropriations. Received 43 Letters of Interest from prospective borrowers. After evaluating the Letters of Interest, WIFIA invited 12 selected prospective borrowers and projects to apply for loans. Issued five loans totaling over $1 billion.
Fiscal Year 2019 Published Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) soliciting letters of interest from prospective borrowers and received 51 Letters of Interest from prospective borrowers. After evaluating the Letters of Interest, WIFIA invited 38 selected prospective borrowers and projects to apply for loans. The program issued seven loans during FY 2019 .
Fiscal Year 2022 Published Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) soliciting letters of interest from prospective borrowers. The program issued 30 loans during FY 2022, providing $3.8 billion to borrowers and supporting more than $8.0 billion in water infrastructure projects.
Fiscal Year 2023 Publishing Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) soliciting letters of interest from prospective borrowers. The program issued 19 loans during FY 2023 (as of July 2023), providing $2.8 billion to eligible borrowers and supporting almost $6.0 billion in water infrastructure projects 33 U.S.C. Ch. 52: Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation The entity applying for WIFIA credit assistance must be one of the following: a corporation, a partnership, a joint venture, a trust, a state or local government entity, agency, or instrumentality, a tribal government or consortium of tribal governments, a State Revolving Fund (SRF) program as defined by the Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act. Not applicable. Project selection includes a process to identify projects to invite to apply which are: eligible, creditworthy, technically feasible, meet the public policy goals outlined in the WIFIA statute and regulation. Preapplication coordination is required. An environmental impact assessment is required for this listing. 2 CFR 200, Uniform Administrative Requirements, Cost Principles, and Audit Requirements for Federal Awards applies to this program. The WIFIA application process is two phases: Phase 1: Project Selection: EPA announces the amount of funding it will have available and solicits letters of interest from prospective borrowers. In their letters of interest, prospective borrowers demonstrate their project's eligibility, creditworthiness, engineering feasibility, readiness to proceed, and alignment with EPA's policy priorities. Based on this information, EPA selects projects it intends to fund and invites the prospective borrowers to continue to the application process. Phase 2: Project Review, Negotiation, and Closing: Each invitee must apply for its WIFIA loan. The WIFIA program conducts a detailed financial and engineering review of the project. Based on that review, the WIFIA program proposes terms and conditions for the project and negotiates them with the applicant until they develop a mutually agreeable term sheet and loan agreement. Prior to closing, the WIFIA program must receive approval from the Administrator or his designee and the Office of Management and Budget. At closing, the prospective borrower executes the credit agreement, which is the binding legal document that allows the borrower to receive WIFIA funds. Once projects are selected, prospective borrowers are invited to submit an application. At this point, the funds for the loan are set-aside to ensure the WIFIA program will have sufficient funds for the loan. The borrower does not receive disbursements until after loan closing. At that point the funds are obligated. EPA accepts letters of interest on an ongoing basis. Prospective borrowers can submit a Letter of Interest (LOI) at any time. Projects will be notified of selection approximately 8 weeks after the LOI submission. Once prospective borrowers are notified that they have been selected, they have up to a year to submit an application. From 1 to 15 days. After a prospective borrower receives a written notification that their project is not eligible under the WIFIA statute, the prospective borrower may respond with a written dispute to the program. The written dispute must be received within fifteen days of WIFIA's notification. The written dispute must include a detailed statement of the legal and/or factual basis for the dispute, the remedy that the prospective borrower is seeking, information on how to communicate with the prospective borrower, and any documentation relevant to the dispute. Borrowers can submit another LOI for additional funding. Selection criteria will be outlined in the Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA). This is specifically for water infrastructure. Performance Reports: Performance reports are required. Frequency determined during negotiation of terms and conditions of loan agreement. Grants and cooperative agreements are subject to inspections and audits by the Comptroller General of the United States, the EPA Office of Inspector General, other EPA staff, or any authorized representative of the Federal government. Reviews by the EPA Project Officer and the Grants Specialist may occur each year. In addition, the program requires audited financial statements per WIFIA regulations and in our loan agreements. The borrower should retain all files and records relating to the loan. Generally, these files should be retained until 5 years after the later of the date on which (i) all obligations under the WIFIA loan agreement have been met and any required audits performed and (ii) any litigation relating to the project, WIFIA loan or WIFIA loan agreement have been resolved. Statutory formula is not applicable to this assistance listing.

Matching is mandatory. WIFIA can only finance up to 49% of total eligible project costs. It is the prospective borrower's responsibility to show that they have other viable sources of funding for the remaining 51% of the eligible project costs. Federal funding cannot exceed 80% of total project costs.

MOE requirements are not applicable to this assistance listing. Projects seeking WIFIA loans should have a construction period of approximately 5 years or less. The WIFIA loan may have a length of up to 35 years after construction completion, allowing payment amounts to be smaller throughout the life of the loan. Prospective borrower has up to one year to submit their application from the time they are selected. The WIFIA program will disburse proceeds of the WIFIA loan to reimburse eligible project costs incurred based on submitted invoices and receipts. Disbursements may be scheduled as often as once per month. None/Not specified. Dallas Shattuck, Program Manager, WIFIA Program
Environmental Protection Agency, 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20460 USA
shattuck.dallas@epa.gov
Phone: 202-564-0972 https://www.epa.gov/wifia 68-0254-0-1-301 (Direct Loans) FY 22$58,500,000.00; FY 23 est $68,000,000.00; FY 24 est $71,899,000.00; FY 21$64,000,000.00; FY 20$26,300,200.00; FY 19$60,000,000.00; FY 18$55,000,000.00; - Range: $13,000,000 to $727,000,000; Average: Approximately $168,000,000. See WIFIA website at: https://www.epa.gov/wifia/wifia-law-and-regulations. Fiscal Year 2019 WIFIA closed a loan with Miami-Dade County, Florida for $99.7 million in March 2019. Miami-Dade County Water and Sewer Department will construct fourteen new injection wells at three wastewater treatment plants. When the construction of this project and all necessary associated facilities are complete, Miami-Dade County will eliminate routine ocean discharges and be in compliance with the State of Florida’s Ocean Outfall Legislation Program. In addition, the project will increase availability of reclaimed water for potential reuse, reduce sanitary sewer overflows, increase capacity for the management of peak wet weather flows, reduce nutrient concentrations, and improve system resiliency. WIFIA also closed a loan with the City of Oak Ridge, Tennessee for $20.7 million in October 2019. The City of Oak Ridge will design and construct a new ultrafiltration membrane drinking water treatment plant to replace the existing 80-year old conventional treatment plant, which is currently at capacity and beyond its useful life. The project also includes construction of raw water intake pumps, traveling screens, a finished water pump station, and water pipelines as well as the rehabilitation of the existing finished water tanks. This project will provide enough capacity to meet the city’s water needs by continuing the production and delivery of safe potable drinking water to its customers.
Fiscal Year 2022 In FY 2022 the WIFIA program closed 30 loans totaling $3.8 billion with eligible borrowers. Examples of projects funded include: Aquifer storage and recovery; Wastewater infrastructure rehabilitation; Stormwater management; Water treatment plant upgrades; and Resiliency improvements. For a complete list of closed WIFIA loans and projects, visit https://www.epa.gov/wifia/wifia-closed-loans.
Fiscal Year 2023 In FY 2023 (as of July), the WIFIA program closed 19 loans totaling $2.8 billion with eligible borrowers. Examples of projects funded include: Water recycling; Groundwater replenishment; Water treatment plant expansion; Wastewater infrastructure improvements; and Biological nutrient removal improvements. For a complete list of closed WIFIA loans and projects, visit https://www.epa.gov/wifia/wifia-closed-loans.