Thanks to the labors of my predecessor, Tom Curtis; other volunteer leaders; and sustained advocacy by AWWA members at the grassroots, the Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) became law in 2014. It has been a smashing success, yet drinking water utilities have been slower to participate in the program compared with utilities managing wastewater, combined sewer overflow (CSO), and water reuse projects.

This trend seems to have been reversing itself lately, but there are still too many missed opportunities for drinking water funding through WIFIA loans. Drinking water systems will send in a letter of interest, but then drop out of the running for reasons still unclear.

WIFIA is a federal credit program that provides long‐term, low‐cost loans with fixed interest rates to creditworthy utilities. The program offers an extended repayment term of up to 35 years from completion of construction (usually five more years), deferred interest, and “sculpted” rates to match revenues with utility expenditures over the life of the loan. Other features such as the “drawdown” and prepayment enhance its attractiveness.

It is also a great deal for the taxpayer. The WIFIA portfolio of loans generates US$100 of infrastructure spending for every $1 appropriated to the program by Congress. WIFIA loans finance up to 49% of approved projects, thereby stimulating other investments from tax‐exempt bonds, state revolving funds (SRFs), or private equity. In 2021 alone, WIFIA will be able to lend approximately $5 billion.

WIFIA is managed by the US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA), which has done an outstanding job with setting up this new finance program. To date, it has closed on 49 loans totaling $9.3 billion (as of April 2021) to finance systems serving 31 million Americans.

Various projects are eligible for WIFIA funding (see www.epa.gov/wifia), including the usual suspects such as treatment, storage, consolidation, water security, energy efficiency, and many more. Basically, anything eligible under either the Clean Water Act or Safe Drinking Water Act SRFs is fair game if the applicant is a public water system. Further, WIFIA loans fund not only projects, but ongoing programs such as lead service line and distribution system replacements—two areas of particular interest to drinking water utilities. While WIFIA has yet to fund a land‐based source water protection project at scale, there is no reason a utility could not fund protection of a headwaters forest or deployment of easements and management practices on agricultural lands to protect the utility's reservoir or other source water.

USEPA's Office of Groundwater and Drinking Water has identified a 200‐year average cycle for replacement of distribution lines in the water sector. While one does not automatically replace, say, a 100‐year‐old line, postponing renewal for two or three centuries is not an asset management model that utilities should practice. Utilities often pay for distribution line renewals from their operating revenue on a pay‐as‐you‐go basis rather than using debt financing with the cost spread over multiple years. WIFIA offers a means of getting ahead of the curve and reducing risk for current and future generations.

Funding wastewater, CSO, and reuse projects is important and will continue to be a big part of the WIFIA program, but it would be ironic if drinking water utilities did not take advantage of this marvelous program that AWWA labored so hard to create, fund, and protect over the past decade. WIFIA and drinking water utilities should not be strangers to each other.

多亏了我的前任汤姆·柯蒂斯（Tom Curtis）的辛勤工作；其他志愿者领袖；在基层的AWWA成员不断倡导下，《水基础设施金融与创新法案》（WIFIA）于2014年成为法律。这项法案取得了巨大的成功，但与管理废水的公共事业相比，饮用水公共事业的参与速度较慢，下水道溢流（CSO）和中水回用项目相结合

这种趋势最近似乎已经在逆转，但是仍然存在太多错过通过WIFIA贷款获得饮用水资金的机会。饮用水系统会发出一封意向书，但由于尚不清楚的原因而退出运营。

WIFIA是一项联邦信贷计划，向信誉良好的公用事业公司提供固定利率的长期低成本贷款。该计划提供从建造完成（最长为五年）起最多35年的延期还款期，递延利息和“雕刻”利率，以在贷款有效期内使收入与公用事业支出相匹配。“提款”和预付款等其他功能增强了它的吸引力。

对于纳税人来说，这也是一个很大的问题。国会每拨出1美元，WIFIA贷款组合就会产生100美元的基础设施支出。WIFIA贷款最多为已批准项目的49％提供资金，从而刺激了免税债券，国家周转基金（SRF）或私募股权的其他投资。仅在2021年，WIFIA就能借出约50亿美元。

WIFIA由美国环境保护署（USEPA）管理，该机构在建立此新的财务计划方面做得非常出色。迄今为止，它已经关闭了49笔贷款，总计93亿美元（截至2021年4月），为服务于3100万美国人的系统提供资金。

各种项目都有资格获得WIFIA资助（请参阅www.epa.gov/wifia），包括常见的可疑项目，例如处理，存储，合并，水安全，能源效率等。基本上，如果申请人是公共供水系统，则符合《清洁水法》或《安全饮用水法》 SRF规定的任何条件都是公平的。此外，WIFIA贷款不仅为项目提供资金，而且还为正在进行的计划（如铅服务线和配电系统更换）提供资金，这是饮用水公用事业特别感兴趣的两个领域。尽管WIFIA尚未大规模资助陆上水源保护项目，但公用事业公司没有理由不能为保护源头森林或在农业土地上部署地役权和管理实践提供资金，以保护公用事业的水库或其他水源。

美国环保局的地下水和饮用水办公室已经确定了200年的平均更换周期，以更换水务部门的供水管线。虽然不会自动替换一条已有100年历史的线路，但将更新推迟两个或三个世纪并不是公用事业应采用的资产管理模式。公用事业公司通常是按照即付即用的方式从其营业收入中为配电线路的更新付费，而不是使用债务融资的方式来分散多年的成本。WIFIA提供了一种领先的方法，并降低了当代和子孙后代的风险。

为废水，CSO和再利用项目提供资金很重要，并且将继续成为WIFIA计划的重要组成部分，但是如果饮用水公用事业没有利用AWWA努力创建，资助，在过去的十年中得到保护。WIFIA和饮用水公用事业不应彼此陌生。