United States: for councils, mayors and administrators

What the upgrade will be driven by, who pays for it, and what the decision actually turns on.

What is driving spend

We read 5,677 Clean Water SRF project entries across 39 states and matched them to live NPDES permits for design flow. In practice these intended use plans and priority lists name the applicant, the project and the amount, and most carry some indication of readiness. That makes them the closest thing there is to a public schedule of who is about to build.

Overlaying that with EPA's quarterly non-compliance record gives the set that actually matters: 81 plants that are lagoon-based, inside 5 MGD, queued for funding, and carrying reported effluent limit violations in the last three years.

The technical question is rarely the one that decides this. The decision turns on what is fundable, what the deadline really is, and what the ratepayer consequence looks like over twenty years.

How the money actually works

Your position on the state Clean Water SRF priority list is public, as is the amount and the readiness stage. Three things follow from that which are easy to miss:

• Readiness stage is a lever, not a verdict. Moving from planning to ready-to-proceed changes your position, and it is largely a documentation exercise.
• Principal forgiveness and disadvantaged-community status are decided on criteria published in the same document that lists your project.
• Buy America. SRF-assisted work carries American Iron and Steel requirements, and federally funded infrastructure carries Build America Buy America. Establish domestic manufacturing with any supplier early rather than late.