July 25, 2012 – The Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality has announced further reductions in the interest rates available through the Nebraska Clean Water State Revolving Loan Fund, which provides communities low-interest loans for wastewater treatment projects.

In July, the interest rate total, including administrative fees, has been reduced from 3.0% to 2.5%. This follows a 0.5% reduction that occurred in April, so the overall interest rate has been reduced by 1.0% in the past four months. Rates are even lower for projects that are considered green infrastructure* projects, which have been reduced from 2.75% to 2.25%.

The Clean Water SRF program, which receives annual EPA capitalization grants, provides low-interest loans and small community matching grants to municipalities for the construction of wastewater treatment facilities and sanitary sewer collection systems. This is a “revolving” loan programs; that is, loan principal repayments go into new loans. Since its inception, the Clean Water program has provided 225 loans, totaling $421 million.

For more information, go to NDEQ’s web site at https://dee.nebraska.gov/home, select “Programs” and then select “Clean Water State Revolving Loan Fund.” Or, the direct link is: http://deq.ne.gov/Wastewat.nsf/pages/CWSRLF



* Green infrastructure projects include water or energy savings, or efficiency measures, stormwater management considered green, or other innovative concepts to save water or energy.