Financing Drought Resilient Water Infrastructure Projects

EPA’s Water Finance Center has issued “State Revolving Funds: Financing Drought Resilient Water Infrastructure Projects,” a report highlighting innovative funding policies and programmatic actions that states are using to support drought resilient investment and operations through incentives, state requirements, and technical assistance.

The report reviews the experiences of 13 western states, some of the most drought prone in the country.  It includes examples of SRF projects funded to address water availability, conservation, efficiency, and reuse.  Specific features of SRF programs were studied to see how states are encouraging these types of projects through programmatic goals, incentives such as priority points and principal forgiveness, state level requirements, complementary state funding, emergency funding mechanisms, technical assistance, and drought information sharing.

By highlighting innovative funding policies and programmatic actions, the report provides examples of how states can effectively use the SRF and other state resources to support drought resilient infrastructure investment.