On November 15, President Biden signed into law the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (HR 3684), authorizing a historic investment in our country's infrastructure, including for water and climate resilience.
Huge thanks to the Massachusetts delegation, especially Senator Markey and Representative Trahan, who pushed for the bill's passage in Congress, and secured key environmental provisions, particularly around funding for combined sewer overflow remediation.
It's a huge bill (over 1,000 pages!) but here are some of the nationwide highlights for water:
$11.7 billion each for the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund and Clean Water State Revolving Fund
$5 billion for grants to address emerging contaminants in small, underserved, and disadvantaged communities with no cost share or matching requirements
$2.4 billion for the removals, retrofit, and rehabilitation of dams
$1 billion for FEMA’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program (BRIC)
$1.4 billion for sewer overflow and stormwater reuse grants
$15 million for Southern New England Estuaries
Read full overviews from:
How much of that funding will Massachusetts see? For starters, Representative Trahan's office reports that the Commonwealth is slated to receive $1.1 billion over the next five years for water infrastructure. It's a great start to upgrading our old stormwater, drinking water, and wastewater systems. In 2012, the Water Infrastructure Finance Commission calculated there to be a $40 billion funding gap in Massachusetts water infrastructure needs. Mass Rivers and our partners will continue to advocate at the local, state, and federal levels for more significant investment for our communities and watersheds.
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