The Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) program accelerates investment in our nation's water infrastructure by providing long-term, low-cost supplemental loans for regionally and nationally significant projects. SHIP CANAL WATER QUALITY PROJECT BORROWER: Seattle Public Utilities LOCATION: Seattle, Washington WIFIA LOAN AMOUNTS: $192.2 million TOTAL ELIGIBLE CONSTRUCTION COSTS: $561.2 million POPULATION SERVED BY PROJECTS: 700,000 NUMBER OF JOBS CREATED: 1,276 jobs PROJECT DESCRIPTION The Ship Canal Water Quality Project will build an offline storage tunnel to reduce the number and volume of Combined Sewer Overflows that discharge into the Lake Washington Ship Canal from Ballard, Fremont, Wallingford, and north Queen Anne. The project includes a 29-million gallon offline storage tunnel, six diversion structures for diverting influent combined sewage away from existing Combined Sewer Overflow outfalls to the tunnel, five drop structures to move combined sewage into the storage tunnel, and odor control systems. PROJECT BENEFITS • Partially reach compliance with the Utility's Consent Agreement to meet state requirements • Protects the water quality in the Lake Washington Ship Canal by reducing combined sewer overflows (CSOs) to an average of one per year or less at all six CSO outfalls. The reduction in overflows is estimated to reduce pollutant discharges to the Ship Canal by an average of 84% per year. • Saves Seattle Public Utilities ratepayers an estimated $66 million by financing the project with a WIFIA loan compared to a bond issuance WIFIA PROGRAM Seattle Project Construction £% United States Environmental Protection kl m % Agency WEBSITE: www.epa.gov/wifia EMAIL: wifia@EPA.gov ------- |