A proposal has been made at the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality to increase the amount of loan forgiveness amount up to a million dollars on money obtained from the state’s Drinking Water State Revolving Fund.
The DEQ announced an amendment was proposed to the state fiscal year 2022 Drinking Water State Revolving Fund Intended Use plan to increase the forgiveness amount from $250,000 to $1,000,000.
The announcement did not offer an explanation why the amendment was proposed.
Under the State Fiscal Year 2022 as proposed, 26 projects are on the fundable portion of the list. The proposal indicated the total need for the projects amounts to $115,634,310 and $34,690,293 will need to be disbursed in fiscal year 2022.
As in the previous year, DEQ’s primary focus for the subsidy (14%) will be with public water supplies which have health-based violations (HBV), such as disinfection byproduct (DBP) issues. However, if these types of projects are not ready to proceed,
the focus may shift towards other initiatives, such as, regionalization, consolidation, or other compliance issues. These types of projects may qualify for up to 100% loan forgiveness.
Additionally, during SFY 2022, DEQ plans to provide additional subsidization to all eligible projects seeking funding through the DWSRF program. For these projects, the amount of subsidy per project will be $250,000.001,000,000.00 or 25% of the loan
amount, whichever is less. There is a maximum of $1,000,000.00 loan forgiveness per entity per state fiscal year.
A copy of the Amended DWSRF draft plan (see page 9) is available on the DEQ website at: https://www.deq.ok.gov/wp-content/uploads/water-division/Amendmentto2022IUP.pdf. A copy may also be obtained by contacting Vicki Reed by phone at (405) 702-8128, by email at Vicki.Reed@deq.ok.gov, or by mail at Water Quality Division, DWSRF Section, Department of Environmental Quality, P.O. Box 1677, Oklahoma City, OK 73101-1677.
The comment period will remain open until December 3, 2021.
Source: OK DEQ