North Dakota’s State Revolving Fund programs, or SRFs, have awarded six loans to four different communities in the state to support their critical water infrastructure.
These loans will support clean water and drinking water projects. Elizabeth Tokach-Duran is manager for the Clean Water State Revolving Fund Program.
"The main eligible type of project would be wastewater for the Clean Water State Revolving Fund Program. But we also fund storm water projects, landfills, treatment, collection."
Communities who were awarded loans were Dickinson, Lisbon, Bowman and Valley City. Dickinson received two $1 million loans for both clean water and drinking water. Lisbon received $9.9 million for clean water, and $1.3 million for drinking water. Bowman received $4 million for clean water, and Valley City received $600,000 for clean water.
Tokach-Duran says these programs allow communities to invest in themselves in ways that may be impossible otherwise.
"Our loans can be typically 20 or 30 years; it's dependent on the useful life of the project. The larger loans, smaller communities, as long as the useful life warrants it, it helps to have 30 year loan terms to lower those payments. And our effective interest rate is two percent, which definitely helps the communities out."
The SRF programs are jointly administered by the North Dakota Department of Environmental Quality and the North Dakota Public Finance Authority.