Washington’s Innovative Emergency Loan Program

The Washington drinking water program has recently established an emergency loan program within its Drinking Water State Revolving Loan Fund (DWSRF) to help water systems respond to and recover from public health threats.  The emergency loan program is designed to ensure that the state is ready and able to award loans to water systems experiencing an emergency, so those systems can restore water service as quickly as possible.  The terms for the emergency loans are as follows:

  • Interest rate: variable (no reduction for project completion in 24 months)
  • Forgiveness: variable
  • Loan Term: 6 years
  • Time of Performance: 2 years from contract execution to project completion date
  • Payment Month: October 1
  • Repayment commencing: First October after contract execution
  • Notice to proceed: 3 months
  • No upper limit on projects

The state will reevaluate the program need after its first year run — both in terms of base funding as well as the amount of subsidy offered for these projects.  More information is available from the following fact sheet:

http://www.doh.wa.gov/Portals/1/Documents/Pubs/331-533.pdf