Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation (WIFIA)

Objective

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. 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. The WIFIA program accelerates investment in water and wastewater infrastructure of national and regional significance by offering creditworthy borrowers loans for up to 49 percent of eligible project costs. For small communities of 25,000 or less people who face significant water infrastructure challenges and economic or administrative hardship accessing funding and financing, the WIFIA program may provide loans for up to 80 percent of eligible project costs. The WIFIA program can fund planning, design, and construction activities for a wide variety of eligible water infrastructure projects, including wastewater conveyance and treatment projects; drinking water treatment and distribution projects; stormwater management; non-point source pollution control; projects that enhance energy efficiency in the operation of a public water system or a publicly owned treatment works; desalination, aquifer recharge, and water recycling projects; acquisition of property if it is integral to the project or will mitigate the environmental impact of a project; and a combination of eligible projects secured by a common security pledge or submitted under one application by an SRF program. Eligible borrowers include: local, state, tribal, government entities, partnerships and joint ventures, corporations and trusts, and clean water and drinking water state revolving fund (SRF) programs. In addition, a set-aside of the WIFIA program, called the State infrastructure financing authority WIFIA (SWIFIA) program, authorized by Congress in section 4201 of America’s Water Infrastructure Act (AWIA) of 2018, provides loans exclusively to state revolving fund programs.

Who Can Apply

• U.S. State Government (including the District of Columbia)
• State
• Local
• Federally Recognized Indian/Native American/Alaska Native Tribal Government
• For-Profit Organization
• Nonprofit Organization
• Interstate Organization
• Municipality or Township government (inclusive of cities, towns, boroughs (except in Alaska), and villages)
• County Government (inclusive of boroughs in Alaska, parishes and other governmental entities with geographic regional control and authority)

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.

Assistance Types

• Direct Loan

Program Contact

shattuck.dallas@epa.gov
202-564-0972