Are Water Utilities and Towns Ready for an Infusion of Infrastructure Funding?
Tim Male, EPIC’s Executive, and Margaret Bowman, a leading consultant on advancing sustainable and equitable water solutions, recently wrote a join piece on the ways to ensure that new water infrastructure funding goes to communities that need it the most and for climate resilient projects. Key takeaways?
Disadvantaged communities too rarely apply to the drinking water fund because of the huge paperwork and planning burden tied to applying for and spending the money. Increasing grants to underserved communities and partner organizations to help them apply for loans is one of the most straightforward ways to help more communities get in line for new funding. Private philanthropy could also support “circuit rider” experts to help disadvantaged communities apply for the new funding.
Before communities even get to the stage of applying for infrastructure funding, they need help designing new, climate resilient, water projects. Ideally Congress would have provided new funding for this predevelopment work in the existing legislation. But in the short-term, private or philanthropic investors should step up with recoverable grants or low interest loans for planning that can be repaid once projects are financed. Intermediary organizations can be used to manage these revolving funds for loans to underserved communities.
Read the full article on Margaret’s blog here.
