The New Jersey Environmental Infrastructure Financing Program marked a major milestone in the state's battle against water pollution when the Jackson Township MUA completed its sewerage system expansion. The completion of this project pushed the dollar amount of projects funded through the Financing Program over the $1 billion mark.

Since 1987, the Financing Program has provided low-interest loans to finance 219 projects for New Jersey municipalities, counties and their agencies for wastewater, nonpoint source pollution and combined sewer overflow controls, and for improvement to both publicly and privately owned drinking water systems. In addition to the $1 billion in completed projects, another $600 million-plus in projects are still under construction.

The Financing Program celebrated its success in a ceremony held on January 11, 2000, at Six Flags Great Adventure, Jackson Township. DEP Commissioner Bob Shinn and Environmental Infrastructure Trust Vice Chairman Barton E. Harrison gathered with Jackson Township officials and officers of Six Flags Great Adventure to commemorate the completion of the Jackson Township MUA's project that connected Great Adventure to Ocean County's regional sewerage system.

"The Environmental Infrastructure Financing Program has funded hundreds of projects across the state resulting in cleaner water for millions of people, now and in the future," Shinn said. "Our program has been a national leader in funding wastewater, and now drinking water infrastructure for more than a decade," Shinn noted. "The program staff and Trust officials are to be commended for this milestone."

Harrison, who has served as vice chairman of the Trust since it was established in 1987, said he believes the Trust's continuing effort to strengthen its credit rating, and thus keep borrowing costs down for program participants, has been key to its success.

"Our bonds allow us to leverage federal dollars and get the biggest bang for our buck. We are the only state authority with a triple-A credit rating from all three major national bond rating agencies," Harrison said. "That ensures that our bonds sell at the lowest prevailing interest cost, and that our borrowers thus pay the lowest rates for their loans."

Since its first loans in 1987, he noted, the Financing Program has produced an estimated $500 million in interest cost savings for its borrowers, when compared to the cost of conventional tax-exempt financing. In the case of the Jackson Township MUA project, the interest rate paid on their $6.1 million loan is 2.75 percent.

Shinn noted that in recent years Governor Whitman and the Legislature have expanded the Financing Program beyond wastewater projects to now include drinking water projects as well as stormwater and nonpoint source pollution management projects.

The wastewater project in Jackson Township includes approximately 10 miles of 16" force main and another mile of 30" gravity main that will connect Six Flags to the existing Jackson Township MUA collection system, which flows to the Ocean County Utilities Authority's Northern Service Area treatment plant. An existing surface water discharge treatment plant at the park will be removed.

"This project holds great environmental and economic benefits for Jackson Township," said Jackson Township MUA Chairman Peter Carlson. "Not only does it consolidate and upgrade the treatment of wastewater from the older plant, it will allow environmentally safe development in areas of the township that are zoned for commercial and industrial use."

"This project, with Six Flags Great Adventure providing the initial guarantee on the loan, is a good example of a public private partnership working for the benefit of the entire township," Carlson said. "Governor Whitman was directly helpful in putting together the many details of this project and I want to thank her for her assistance."

The New Jersey Environmental Infrastructure Financing Program is a partnership between the Trust and DEP. Tax-exempt bonds sold by the Trust are combined with federal dollars that come to DEP as capitalization grants intended to finance improvements to water quality and to the state's drinking water systems through loan awards. By combining an interest-free loan from the DEP with a market rate loan from the proceeds of Trust bond sales, borrowers like the Jackson Township MUA are able to finance their projects at half the prevailing market interest rate. This substantial savings in interest costs, combined with other cost-saving features of the Financing Program, typically result in savings of 25 to 30 percent of the overall cost of a project.