The Environmental Protection Agency has announced that $194 million will be awarded to King County in the form of a Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act loan.
Money will go towards water-related infrastructure projects
According to the EPA:
“This loan is the first installment of funding available to King County under a new master agreement, where EPA has committed to provide almost $500 million in low-interest funding for future water infrastructure projects.”
The WIFA program accelerates water and infrastructure projects that are deemed to be vital due to existing or potential pollution issues. According to the EPA:
“The majority of the latest WIFIA loan will go toward various clean-water investments at West Point Treatment Plant, which cleans wastewater and stormwater. This project makes several improvements at the wastewater treatment plant, including removing corroded pipes, upgrading raw sewage pumps, and implementing structural upgrades to the administrative building to protect against future seismic events.”
There have been numerous incidents where partially treated or raw sewage was dumped into Puget Sound from the West Point and other treatment plants, due to a variety of age-related and mechanical failures. One of the biggest was in 2017 when 30 million gallons were spilled at West Point.
Many of these facilities continue to leak and spread pollution, but significant progress has not been made to prevent it.
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Gallery Credit: Andrew Lisa