Forty projects have met the requirements to receive low interest loans from the New Jersey Environmental Infrastructure Financing Program. The forty projects totaling $148 million will improve the drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater infrastructure throughout the State. The projects are critical to the overall goal of preserving the State's water resources and ensuring safe drinking water for future generations. Twenty-two of the projects target wastewater, stormwater and nonpoint source pollution by improving sewage treatment facilities, maintaining wastewater collection and conveyance systems, and reducing pollution caused by stormwater runoff. An additional fourteen projects will help municipalities, and also private water purveyors, meet the requirements of the Safe Drinking Water Act. The remaining four projects are for land acquisition and conservation. Maintaining open space has a positive effect on headwaters, stream corridors, wetlands and aquifer recharge areas, which protect water quality when preserved in their natural state. The Financing Program will help preserve 236 acres.

The Financing Program is a partnership between the DEP and the New Jersey Environmental Infrastructure Trust that enables borrowers to receive the lowest possible rates on loans for infrastructure projects. By combining interest-free loans from DEP's State Revolving Funds with market rate loans from the sale of Trust bonds, the participants in the Financing Program are usually able to borrow money at half the rate the Trust pays on its AAA-rated bonds. However, as part of the Smart Growth Initiative, this year's Financing Program also included a lower-interest rate program with a "75/25" split of the Department/Trust shares for projects that promote smart growth providing these projects with financing at a quarter of the prevailing market rate. Since the Trust bonds sold at 4.23% interest this year, the regular program borrowers will pay 2.12% interest on their loans while the project borrowers eligible for the Smart Growth financing rate will pay only 1.06% on their loans.

Projects that received the special lower-interest rate in 2003 included:

1. clean water (wastewater and stormwater/nonpoint source management) and drinking water infrastructure projects serving an approved Urban Center (these are Atlantic City, Camden, Elizabeth, Jersey City, New Brunswick, Newark, Paterson, and Trenton) or an approved Urban Complex (currently the Hudson County Urban Complex, which encompasses the Jersey City Urban Center and the Development Activity Areas in Bayonne, East Newark, Guttenberg, Harrison, Hoboken, Jersey City, Kearny, North Bergen, Secaucus, Union, Weehawken and West New York);

2. projects that eliminate or improve combined sewer overflows; and

3. projects that involve the acquisition of open space lands.

In addition, the Department currently limits loan amounts to project costs that address existing needs and needs projected through the anticipated commencement of operations; reserve capacity costs are typically funded by the Trust at market rate, with local resources paying for the debt service reserve. Rule amendments have been adopted to allow the Department to fully fund its share of project costs related to reserve capacity for projects that serve urban areas and, upon adoption of the BIG Map rules, areas of the state in which development is being encouraged.

Since 1987, the Financing Program has put over $2.13 billion to work removing pollutants from the state's waterways and protecting water supplies, saving borrowers over $600 million in the process.

For more information on the loan program, contact Assistant Director Stanley V. Cach, P.E., P.P., of the Municipal Finance and Construction Element, at (609) 292-8961. For more information on the New Jersey Environmental Infrastructure Trust, contact Executive Director Dennis Hart at (609) 219-8600. Sponsors of drinking water projects should contact Josephine Craver from the Bureau of Safe Drinking Water at (609) 292-5550.

The following lists the forty projects that were certified by the DEP's Municipal Finance and Construction Element in August and September 2003 for low-interest loans through the Environmental Infrastructure Financing Program. Governor McGreevey signed the legislative package of bills on August 15, 2003 that allows the DEP and the Trust to proceed with the execution of loan agreements. The DEP, the Trust, and the project sponsors will close on the loans in November.

Clean Water

Drinking Water

Land Acquisition

* Project sponsors received Smart Growth financing.