EP115: State Revolving Funds: A Key to Unlocking Community Transformation

Top Takeaways:

• The top three issues concerning state revolving funds.
• Data and its role in shaping policy around affordability and equity.
• Communication and how it can be a tool to ensure no one is left behind in infrastructure planning.
• Ways that the state revolving fund conversation is initiating change in other areas of the water sector.
• Resources for small to mid size communities to get assistance for funding.

Resources:

Katy Hansen, 

Tee Thomas,  

• For residents and community groups to discuss and take action on water, climate, and infrastructure: 
• The Water Equity and Climate Resilience Caucus co-convened by PolicyLink and the Gulf Coast Center for Law and Policy.
• Anthropocene Alliance  
• For advocates and water utilities that want to know more about SRF programs 
• SRF Advocates Forum co-convened by the Alliance for the Great Lakes, EPIC, PolicyLink, and the River Network.  
• Resource pages from River Network, including the Equitable Water Infrastructure Toolkit and State Revolving Fund Resources
• Southwest Environmental Finance Center’s SRF switchboard
• For towns, cities, water utilities, and others interested in applying for SRF, reach out to technical assistance providers:
• EPIC’s Funding Navigator
• RCAP

The Drinking Water SRF report is here.

Sign up for the SRF Forum here.

Meet Katy and Tee!

Dr. Katy Hansen works to improve equity in local public service provision. As a Senior Advisor for Water at EPIC, she focuses on the allocation of federal financial assistance for water infrastructure. Prior to EPIC, Katy worked at the Environmental Finance Center at UNC-Chapel Hill, Association for Water and Rural Development in South Africa, and Arava Institute for Environmental Studies in the Middle East.

She led projects to digitize over 500 maps of water service areas for the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality and improve access to sanitation in rural Alabama with the Center for Rural Enterprise and Environmental Justice. She holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Policy from Duke University and an MSc in Water Policy from the University of Oxford, where she was a Rhodes Scholar.

Tee Thomas brings 15+ years of water financing and environmental equity experience to Quantified Ventures. Most recently, she served as the Water Finance Director for the state of Vermont. In this role, she managed more than $500M worth of loans, grants, and contracts related to water financing.

She wrote and helped pass Act 185 which overhauled the state’s Clean Water State Revolving Fund to expand the program to fund natural infrastructure through new mechanisms, including a sponsorship program. She created the Natural Infrastructure Interim Financing Program, which deployed $15M in its first two years of operations, protecting and restoring more than 11,000 acres of land including wetlands, streams, drinking source water protection areas, and river corridor easements. Tee has also been active with the Vermont Legislature, working on water quality policy and legislation related to environmental equity.

Prior to her tenure in Vermont, Tee worked with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources’ Drinking Water Program and later with the Iowa Department of Transportation as the National Environmental Policy Act Manager.

Tee combines her expertise in the mechanics of the EPA’s Clean Water Act Funding Programs (Clean Water and Drinking Water State Revolving Funds) with her passion for natural infrastructure. She’s a strong believer in the potential power of public financing to be the catalytic super investor in this fast emerging field of nature-based solutions, while simultaneously and aggressively advancing equity and resilience agendas across the country.

Tee loves surfing, reading obscure non-fiction, and volunteering as an English teacher.