Public Participation: The Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) is presenting the draft list of targeted FY 2020 VCWRLF loan recipients for public review and comment.  A public meeting will be held at 10:00 AM on Monday, November 4, 2019 in the 3^rd Floor Conference Room, 1111 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 Ms. Karen Doran, Department of Environmental Quality, Clean Water Financing and Assistance Program, PO Box 1105, Richmond, Virginia  23218, phone number (804) 698-4133, or e-mailed to cwfap@deq.virginia.gov.  Written comments should include the name, address and telephone number of the presenter.

Introduction: Section 606 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.

Funds Available: With substantial revenues coming in from our large loan portfolio, continued federal and state match funding, and moderate loan demand over the last several years, the VCWRLF continues to maintain very healthy account balances.  Therefore, the accumulation of funds that have and will occur in the Fund through loan payments, interest earnings, and de-allocations from leverage accounts, plus additional leveraged dollars will result in enough funding being available during the FY 2020 funding cycle to fund the applications received.  Final Board approval of the list will not be requested until the December Board meeting.

FY 2020 Program Development: On June 10, 2019 Clean Water Financing and Assistance Program (CWFAP) staff solicited applications from the Commonwealth’s localities and wastewater authorities as well as potential land conservation, living shoreline, and brownfield remediation applicants.  July 26, 2019 was established as the deadline for receiving applications.  Based on this solicitation, DEQ received 22 wastewater improvement applications requesting $651,069,292, two (2) stormwater applications requesting $13,906,464, and one (1) brownfield application requesting $373,086, bringing the total amount requested to $665,348,842.

All 22 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 readiness-to-proceed of the project. The stormwater applications were reviewed using the Board’s evaluation criteria for stormwater projects in accordance with Board guidelines and state law. The brownfield application was reviewed using the Board’s evaluation criteria for brownfield projects in accordance with Board guidelines and state law.

The list of applications, shown in priority funding order based on the Board’s prioritization criteria for each project type, is available from the contact person listed below.  Note that each project type (wastewater, stormwater, and brownfield) has a separate priority ranking point system that is not intended to be numerically compared from one type to the other.  The recommended project funding list is also available from the contact listed below and provides funding for all the applications received. All applications are considered to be of good quality and should provide significant water quality and/or environmental improvement.  The staff is recommending that the list be tentatively adopted, subject to the verification of information in the loan applications and public review and comment. 

The list of applications and recommended funding list are also available at: https://www.deq.virginia.gov/Programs/Water/CleanWaterFinancingAssistance.aspx.