Virginia Regulatory Town Hall
Agency
Department of Environmental Quality
Board
State Water Control Board

General Notice
Public Comment Period and Public Meeting - FY 2016 Virginia Clean Water Revolving Loan Fund Intended Use Plan and Project Priority List
Date Posted: 10/9/2015
Expiration Date: 11/10/2015
Submitted to Registrar for publication: YES
No comment forum defined for this notice.

Introduction: Section 606(c) of the Water Quality Act of 1987 requires the State to develop an Intended Use Plan (IUP) that identifies the uses of its Clean Water Revolving Loan Fund and to prepare a list of projects targeted for financial assistance with those funds.  Following public comment and final Board action, the list of targeted projects for financial assistance becomes the State's yearly clean water revolving loan Project Priority List (PPL) in the IUP.

FY 2016 Program Development:  On May 29, 2015 the staff solicited applications from the Commonwealth’s localities and wastewater authorities as well as potential stormwater management, land conservation and Brownfield remediation clientele.  July 17, 2015 was established as the deadline for receiving applications. Based on this solicitation, DEQ received fifteen (15) wastewater improvement applications requesting $62,175,702, two (2) applications for land conservation projects (totaling $5,310,000), one (1) Brownfield remediation application (1,000,000), and one (1) stormwater management application for an additional $1,705,275, bringing the total amount requested to $70,190,977.

All 15 wastewater applications were evaluated in accordance with the program's Funding Distribution Criteria.  In keeping with the program objectives and funding prioritization criteria, the staff reviewed project type and impact on state waters, the locality's compliance history and fiscal stress, and the project's readiness-to-proceed.  The one stormwater application was reviewed in accordance with the Board’s Priority Ranking Criteria for Stormwater projects.  All wastewater/ stormwater applications are considered to be of good quality and should provide significant water quality and environmental improvement.  The Brownfield remediation project was also determined to provide direct improvement to groundwater quality and is being recommended for funding.  The 2 land conservation applications were reviewed using the Board’s Land Conservation Loan Funding Prioritization criteria and the staff also received input from the Department of Conservation and Recreation in accordance with the Board guidelines and state law.

The list of applications is shown by project type in priority funding order based on the Board’s prioritization criteria.  Note that each project type (wastewater, stormwater, land conservation) has separate priority ranking point systems that are not intended to be numerically compared from one type to the other.  All applications are considered to be of good quality and should provide significant water quality and environmental improvement.  Based on these considerations, on October 1st the Board approved the staff recommendation to target funding for $70,190,977 for all 19 projects and present the proposed PPL and IUP for public comment.  The list of Applications and the Target Funding List are available at:  http://www.deq.virginia.gov/Programs/Water/CleanWaterFinancingAssistance/FY2016AnnualSolicitation.aspx

Public Participation:  The Board is presenting its draft list of targeted FY 2016 loan recipients and Intended Use Plan for public review and comment.  A public meeting will be held at 3:00 p.m. on Tuesday, November 10th in the Department of Environmental Quality's 2nd Floor Conference Room, 629 East Main Street, Richmond, Virginia 23219.  The public review and comment period will end immediately following the public meeting. Comments or questions should be directed to the contact person below.


Contact Information
Name / Title: Walter Gills 
Address: 629 East Main Street
P.O. Box 1105
Richmond, 23218
Email Address: walter.gills@deq.virginia.gov
Telephone: (804)698-4133    FAX: ()-    TDD: ()-