On Feb. 25, EPA announced the WIFIA program closed its seventh loan to the City of Baltimore, making EPA’s total of credit assistance nearly $2 billion. The City of Baltimore $202 million loan will be used to complete a program of 14 projects to repair, rehabilitate, and replace existing wastewater conveyances, update treatment plants, and manage stormwater. In turn, this will better protect public health and water quality for 1.8 million Baltimore residents.
Baltimore’s project is estimated to cost $942 million. EPA’s WIFIA loan will help finance more than twenty percent of that amount—up to $202 million. Additionally, Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) will finance approximately $280.5 million from its Water Quality Revolving Loan Fund and approximately $47.5 million from the Bay Restoration Grant Fund. The Maryland Water Quality Revolving Loan Fund receives an annual grant from EPA, including nearly $39 million in 2018. Because both the WIFIA program and the MDE loan program, offer low interest rates, the City is expected to realize significant cost savings. The WIFIA loan alone will save the City up to $40 million.
EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler was joined by both U.S. Senators from Maryland, Chris Van Hollen and Ben Cardin, Mayor Catherine Pugh, and others including Baltimore City Department of Public Works Director and WEF Government Affairs Committee Chair Rudy Chow, when making the announcement.
The WIFIA program was established by the Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act of 2014, and is a federal loan and guarantee program at EPA that aims to accelerate investment in the nation’s water infrastructure by providing long-term, low-cost supplemental credit assistance for regionally and nationally significant projects in addition to providing thousands of jobs
Read EPA’s fact sheet on the City of Baltimore loan.
