WASHINGTON – At a virtual event with City of Roseville Mayor Krista Bernasconi and Roseville Assistant Director of Water Sean Bigley, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Principal Deputy Assistant Administrator for Water Radhika Fox announced a $33 million Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) loan to the City of Roseville, California, for its Water Future Initiative. Announced during Water Week 2021, EPA’s WIFIA loan will support a project to diversify the city’s drinking water supply and reduce potential impacts of climate change while saving the City of Roseville money that will be reinvested in water system improvements.
“EPA is excited to announce its 50th WIFIA loan, which provides a great opportunity to recognize the successes we’ve had while redoubling our efforts to improve infrastructure in communities that need it most,” said EPA’s Principal Deputy Assistant Administrator for Water Radhika Fox. “We’ve seen time and again that collaborating with local partners and investing in water infrastructure can improve public health, protect the environment, create jobs, and support economic growth while addressing key challenges facing communities.”
The City of Roseville’s Water Future Initiative will improve the system’s resiliency through water diversification, upgrades to existing infrastructure, and expanded water reuse. Funding will help construct a new 12 million gallon per day tertiary filtration system at one of two regional wastewater treatment plants in Roseville. Alongside that upgrade are Roseville’s early stages of evaluation for advanced treatment technologies to determine the feasibility to expand the use of recycled water. WIFIA funding will also expand Roseville’s Aquifer Storage and Recovery Program with six new groundwater well sites that will store surplus surface water supplies in times of plenty and extract it during dry conditions. Both efforts will help manage climate change impacts locally, regionally and statewide.
"Investing in 21st century water infrastructure is critical to ensuring California’s communities are resilient to the ongoing climate crisis,” said Chairman of the State Water Resources Control Board Joaquin Esquivel. “This federal support for the City of Roseville means that residents can feel more secure about the future of their water supply and access to safe drinking water in particular, even as California enters another concerning drought cycle. This is a great example of what is possible when local leaders promote a vision for their communities, and state and federal resources help make their vision reality.”
“Water is vital to any community. Having sound and stable water infrastructure will increase reliability and continue to spur economic resiliency for Roseville,” said City of Roseville Mayor Krista Bernasconi. “Funding from the U.S. EPA will bolster work on Roseville’s Water Future Initiative, a water portfolio diversification effort to expand our groundwater program now as well as look at ways of increasing recycled water efforts over time.”
“We are taking a long-term approach to plan and implement a water strategy to serve our community through 2050,” said Roseville Environmental Utilities Assistant Director of Water Sean Bigley. “What is clear is that maintaining reliability starts with a plan. As important is implementing these infrastructure projects as soon as possible because they can take time, and we want to be ahead of the curve for our thriving community.”
This project will cost $68 million and EPA’s WIFIA loan will finance nearly half of that figure. This WIFIA loan will save the City of Roseville an estimated $8 million, which the City can pass on to customers through continued service improvements by accelerating additional infrastructure investment.
With this WIFIA loan closing, EPA has announced 50 WIFIA loans that are providing over $9 billion in credit assistance to help finance more than $20 billion for water infrastructure while creating approximately 49,000 jobs and saving ratepayers over $4 billion. Earlier this week, EPA announced the availability of $5.5 billion under the 2021 WIFIA notice of funding availability and an additional $1 billion under the state infrastructure financing authority WIFIA (SWIFIA) program. Together, this newly available funding will support more than $13 billion in water infrastructure projects while creating more than 40,000 jobs.
