Drinking Water State Revolving Fund (DWSRF) Annual State Grant Allotment Fact Sheet

 Drinking Water State Revolving Fund (DWSRF) Annual State Grant Allotment
Fact Sheet

EPA 816-F-05-006 April 2005

Summary
The goal of the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund (DWSRF) program is to provide states with a permanent financing mechanism to ensure safe drinking water. States use EPA capitalization grants to set up infrastructure funding accounts from which they make loans to public water systems. Eligible infrastructure projects include upgrades of treatment facilities, storage facilities, and transmission and distribution systems. Projects to consolidate water supplies may also be eligible. Over the history of the DWSRF program, EPA has awarded more than $6 billion in grants to states and territories. States, in turn, have provided more than $8 billion in low interest loans to public water systems. The amount of DWSRF program funding for Fiscal Year 2005 is $843,200,000, which reflects a mandatory 0.8% decrease from the Congressional appropriation of $850 million.

Background
Since federal fiscal year 1998, the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) has required that EPA distribute (i.e., allot) grant funding to each state based on the state's proportional share of the total eligible needs reported for the most recent Drinking Water Infrastructure Needs Survey. Each state must receive at least one percent of funds available for allotment to all of the states. The Act also provides that a portion of the appropriation may be used for Indian Tribes and Alaskan Native Villages infrastructure projects, monitoring of unregulated contaminants and operator certification reimbursement.

About the Needs Survey
The first Drinking Water Infrastructure Needs Survey was presented to Congress in January 1997. Before completing that report, EPA asked for public comment on six options for using the results to determine the allotment formula for appropriations. The final method for alloting funds was published in the Federal Register in March 1997. EPA continues to use that method for alloting state grants from the national appropriation.

EPA must provide Congress with a Drinking Water Infrastructure Needs Survey every four years. The Needs Survey contains information reported by states on the costs of constructing facilities and systems that deliver safe drinking water to the public. The allotment formula for state grants from fiscal year 2002 through 2005 reflects the needs identified in the second report to Congress released in 2001. A third report to Congress will be released in 2005 and the results will be used to calculate state grant allotments for appropriations made in fiscal years 2006 through 2009.

Allotment to Other Jurisdictions and the District of Columbia
The SDWA requires the Administrator to reserve up to 0.33 percent of the amount available to states to provide grants to the Virgin Islands, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, and Guam. The SDWA also requires the Administrator to reserve one percent of the funds available for allotment to the states to provide grants to the District of Columbia. These grants are administered by the EPA Regional Offices.