After receiving word that two potential funding sources for its municipal wastewater system were not awarded late last month, Waitsfield is working on finalizing details of a preliminary engineering report that will improve the town’s chance of receiving funding going forward.
Select board member Chach Curtis, who serves on the town’s wastewater planning committee said that it’s not a setback that two sources of funds were not awarded. Rather, he said, once the preliminary engineering report (PER) is 100% completed, it will provide the details that will allow the town to enter the final design phase with 30, 60, and 90% completion benchmarks.
That work, Curtis said, will make the project more likely to receive federal funds, in particular, but also state funds.
This spring, Waitsfield was invited to apply for $10.4 million in congressional appropriations from Senator Bernie Sanders’ office and also invited to apply for a $3 million grant through the Northern Borders Regional Commission Catalyst Program. The estimated price tag for the project is $15.6 million.
“We’re in the second inning of a nine-inning ball game. We’ve got lots of steps to get through before we have to finalize funding. The good news is that this gives us time to reapply for some of the same grants and federal earmarks and other sources of funds that we’re still identifying. We learned a lot since we applied and when we reapply through Bernie Sanders and Peter Welch, we’ll get another kick at that can,” Curtis said.
He explained that Vermont’s delegation is looking for shovel-ready projects because of the messaging it allows them to bring to their constituents. The more the town advances in its planning work, he said, the closer that brings the project to being shovel ready.
Those steps include completing the PER and the town is still with the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation on how to enhance its priority rating for state funding. After the PER is completed, or at 100%, the town will begin engineering design work.
Curtis said that in terms of federal ARPA funds the state received and needed to allocate by a date specific in 2022, those funds were granted to projects that were slated to meet certain benchmarks by specific dates. Additionally, some of those funds were earmarked for towns like Londonderry which were severely impacted by flooding.
“To make progress on those projects, receiving communities need to secure ownership of land, complete the design phases, etc. Not all of those communities are going to be able to complete that,” he said.
When that happens, the ARPA funds are returned to the state and reallocated to other towns and projects. Communities that had been awarded funds and were subsequently flooded were likely to be eligible for more and different types of state and federal funding which would result in more funds being returned to the state and reallocated.
“It is in our favor, now, that we have a site, and preliminary design and preliminary engineering. Those are boxes that DEC requires be checked before they hand out money. Our hope is that we’re first in line for any money that frees up,” Curtis added.
The system that the town is planning will be located on the town-owned Munn Field and will have a capacity of 84,000 gallons per day for a tertiary treatment facility. That capacity will provide the town with enough capacity to provide wastewater to users in the service areas of Irasville and Waitsfield Village as well as provide capacity for 35 one- and 35 two-bedroom dwelling units in that service area and capacity to accommodate an 8% growth in commercial usage in those areas.
To get this far in the planning process, Waitsfield has received $199,418 to study the feasibility of municipal wastewater and to undertake the PER. Both of those loans have been forgiven by the state. The town will also be able to apply for Clean Water State Revolving Fund grants for at least two of three final design phases.
Despite the likelihood of state and federal funding materializing, Curtis said the town has multiple funding options including town bonds, user fees, state and federal low and no interest loans and grants and more.
“At this early stage in the process as we near completion of PER, we don’t know what mix of those various sources we’re going to draw on to fund this. The further we get in the process, the easier it will be for us to attract funding. And we have to be care that we don’t assume the project be 100% funded by state and federal money without us needing to cover part,” he added.
