— EFCN’s Water Leadership Program is being led by the Syracuse University Environmental Finance Center, in partnership with the Wichita State University Environmental Finance Center and Southwest Environmental Finance Center at the University of New Mexico. Staff from all three Centers, as well as experts from EFCN’s national network of partners, will work with the accepted water professionals to offer training and support individual career development. Since EFCN’s launch in 2012, the Network has trained more than 32,000 water and wastewater professionals from thousands of communities across the country.
— EPA Region 7’s Trash-Free Waters program, along with Wichita State University’s Environmental Finance Center and the Missouri Confluence Waterkeeper organization, are working with local community groups on a project to install and maintain three trash traps in St. Louis area streams.
— The Cooperative Watershed Management Program provides funding to watershed groups to encourage diverse stakeholders to form local solutions to address their water management needs.
— The Hugo Wall School of Public Affairs is proud to announce that Tonya Bronleewe has been selected as the new director for the Environmental Finance Center.
— Wells Fargo and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation have partnered to provide Resilient Communities funding to help communities: prepare for future impacts of sea-level rise, sustain water quality and quantity, and enhance forest conservation.
— The Missouri Clean Water State Revolving Fund provides communities a permanent, independent source of low-cost financing for a wide range of water quality infrastructure projects.
— The Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act’s purpose is to accelerate investment in our nations water and wastewater infrastructure by providing long-term, low-cost supplemental credit assistance under customized terms to creditworthy water and wastewater projects of national and regional significance.
— In-Lieu Fees allow developers, states and local governments to offset “unavoidable impacts” to streams or wetlands and fulfill the National Policy of “no net loss of wetlands” through compensatory mitigation conducted by public agencies or nonprofits in compliance with Clean Water Act Section 404 Permitting. In other words, developers can “offset” stream and/or wetland impacts by purchasing credits that are generated by ILF programs which create, restore, and protect streams and wetlands within the affected Ecological Drainage Unit (watershed).
— The Monarch Butterfly and Pollinators Conservation Fund supports projects that benefit monarch butterflies and one or more federally listed, candidate or proposed native insect pollinator species.
