Many government agencies are close to wrapping up their federal stimulus initiatives, but a large number of communities are still waiting in line for funding or struggling to pay for costly water and sewer projects, according to United States Department of Agriculture officials.
Even some of the localities that received the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act money — mainly those that got a low-interest loan instead of a grant-loan combination — are finding it difficult to pay for projects.
“Nobody got as much grant money as they’d like,” said Agriculture Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan, during an announcement last week of another round of stimulus funding through USDA.
The number of rural communities that need help paying for improvements to aging infrastructure is “far greater” than the pool of money, she added.
The village of Herkimer was awarded a $1.66 million low-interest stimulus loan to pay for its wastewater treatment plant upgrades.
Although the loan will save the village an estimated $800,000 over a 38-year loan period, according to village project consultant Tony Carlisto, of Ward Associates in Little Falls, the impact of annual payments on rate payers has village board members pursuing alternative funding assistance.
The village recently rejected an offer from the county Legislature to provide $800,000 to help with the treatment plant project. If the village had accepted the offer, it would have guaranteed permits and sewer service for a proposed county jail facility.
The amount of money is not enough to offset the impact of locating a jail facility off State Route 28, village officials have said. On several occasions, the village board suggested the county should pay for the entire treatment plant project.
But since the upgrade project is needed with or without the construction of a new county jail, the village sewer rate payers may end up shouldering the entire burden.
The cost, while softened by stimulus loan funding, may have been even less if the village received some grant funding instead of the loan, village officials have said.
Tim Jones, special projects coordinator with the USDA Rural Development, did say that projects in dire need of repairs are scored higher when applying for funds.
“Projects that are under New York State Department of Environmental Conservation consent orders (these normally involve “code” issues such as a sewer system that discharges into a local stream during heavy rains, for instance) do score higher when applying for funding,” Jones wrote in an e-mail.
The village plant has had at least one recent case of discharging untreated water into the Mohawk River, according to state DEC officials. But the site is not under a consent order.
Efforts to keep the treatment plant up to “code” kept it from being mandated to conduct immediate repairs, according to comments from village officials.
“This does not necessarily have an effect on the size of their grant, however,” Jones added.
“The affordable user cost, which is based on the project’s median household income, is what determines how large a grant will be,” Jones explained.
“Generally, the lower the MHI, the larger the grant, but USDA is obligated to provide loan first and no project is fully funded by grant,” he added.
To date, USDA has announced $2.9 billion in ARRA funds for 788 water and environmental projects.
Over $157 million in ARRA funding announced last week will go toward 34 water and sewer projects as part of one of the final USDA-administered stimulus rounds. No local projects received money in the most recent round, which also distributed $45.6 million in USDA Rural Development funds.
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Many government agencies are close to wrapping up their federal stimulus initiatives, but a large number of communities are still waiting in line for funding or struggling to pay for costly water and sewer projects, according to United States Department of Agriculture officials.
Even some of the localities that received the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act money — mainly those that got a low-interest loan instead of a grant-loan combination — are finding it difficult to pay for projects.
“Nobody got as much grant money as they’d like,” said Agriculture Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan, during an announcement last week of another round of stimulus funding through USDA.
The number of rural communities that need help paying for improvements to aging infrastructure is “far greater” than the pool of money, she added.
The village of Herkimer was awarded a $1.66 million low-interest stimulus loan to pay for its wastewater treatment plant upgrades.
Although the loan will save the village an estimated $800,000 over a 38-year loan period, according to village project consultant Tony Carlisto, of Ward Associates in Little Falls, the impact of annual payments on rate payers has village board members pursuing alternative funding assistance.
The village recently rejected an offer from the county Legislature to provide $800,000 to help with the treatment plant project. If the village had accepted the offer, it would have guaranteed permits and sewer service for a proposed county jail facility.
The amount of money is not enough to offset the impact of locating a jail facility off State Route 28, village officials have said. On several occasions, the village board suggested the county should pay for the entire treatment plant project.
But since the upgrade project is needed with or without the construction of a new county jail, the village sewer rate payers may end up shouldering the entire burden.
The cost, while softened by stimulus loan funding, may have been even less if the village received some grant funding instead of the loan, village officials have said.
Tim Jones, special projects coordinator with the USDA Rural Development, did say that projects in dire need of repairs are scored higher when applying for funds.
“Projects that are under New York State Department of Environmental Conservation consent orders (these normally involve “code” issues such as a sewer system that discharges into a local stream during heavy rains, for instance) do score higher when applying for funding,” Jones wrote in an e-mail.
The village plant has had at least one recent case of discharging untreated water into the Mohawk River, according to state DEC officials. But the site is not under a consent order.
Efforts to keep the treatment plant up to “code” kept it from being mandated to conduct immediate repairs, according to comments from village officials.
“This does not necessarily have an effect on the size of their grant, however,” Jones added.
“The affordable user cost, which is based on the project’s median household income, is what determines how large a grant will be,” Jones explained.
“Generally, the lower the MHI, the larger the grant, but USDA is obligated to provide loan first and no project is fully funded by grant,” he added.
To date, USDA has announced $2.9 billion in ARRA funds for 788 water and environmental projects.
Over $157 million in ARRA funding announced last week will go toward 34 water and sewer projects as part of one of the final USDA-administered stimulus rounds. No local projects received money in the most recent round, which also distributed $45.6 million in USDA Rural Development funds.
