The Oklahoma Water Resources Board (OWRB) has approved $268,200,000 in funding for the Edmond Public Works Authority’s water infrastructure.
Two requests totaling $185,000,000 will be financed by Oklahoma’s Drinking Water State Revolving Fund (DWSRF), with $1,000,000 of the loan will be in the form of loan forgiveness, and a third loan totaling $83,200,000 will be funded through the Financial Assistance Loan Program (FAP).
The Authority will use the funds to support a variety of water projects, including construction of a low lift pump station for intake of raw water on Arcadia Lake, which includes a wet well, three 60-inch diameter screened intake lines, five variable speed, vertical turbine pumps, two feed systems, and a 42-inch discharge raw water transmission main.
The funds will also help make improvements to the Authority's water treatment plant, including modifications to the existing maintenance building, replacement of granular activated carbon filters, construction of an elevated storage tank for backwash water storage, the construction of two new finished water clearwells, a new lift pump station and water meter valve, two new waste washwater basins, a recycle pump station, and a new electrical building. These improvements will allow the system to continue providing sustainable water to customers of the Authority.
Joe Freeman, chief of the OWRB’s Financial Assistance Division, estimates that the loans will save customers $9,862,300 compared to traditional loans.
“We appreciate the Board’s consideration and assistance on all of our loans now and over the last several years,” said the Authority’s Director of Water Resources, Kris Neifing, in a press release.
The DWSRF program is administered by the OWRB and the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality (ODEQ) with partial funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The DWSRF program has provided approximately $1.8 billion in drinking water loans to provide communities the resources necessary to maintain and improve the infrastructure that protects our valuable water resources statewide.
