The General Assembly finds:
         (a) that local government units require assistance in
    
financing the construction of water treatment works and projects in order to comply with the State‘s program of environmental protection and federally mandated requirements;
        (b) that the federal Water Quality Act of 1987
    
provides an important source of grant awards to the State for providing assistance to local government units through the Water Pollution Control Loan Program;
        (c) that local government units and privately owned
    
community water supplies require assistance in financing the construction of their public water supplies to comply with State and federal drinking water laws and regulations;
        (d) that the federal Safe Drinking Water Act
    
(“SDWA”), P.L. 93-523, as now or hereafter amended, provides an important source of capitalization grant awards to the State to provide assistance to local government units and privately owned community water supplies through the Public Water Supply Loan Program;
        (e) that violations of State and federal drinking
    
water standards threaten the public interest, safety, and welfare, which demands that the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency expeditiously adopt emergency rules to administer the Public Water Supply Loan Program;
        (f) that the General Assembly agrees with the
    
conclusions and recommendations of the “Report to the Illinois General Assembly on the Issue of Expanding Public Water Supply Loan Eligibility to Privately Owned Community Water Supplies”, dated August 1998, including the stated access to the Public Water Supply Loan Program by the privately owned public water supplies so that the long term integrity and viability of the corpus of the Fund will be assured;
        (g) that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
    
of 2009 provides a source of capitalization grant awards to the State to provide loans and additional subsidization, including, but not limited to, forgiveness of principal, negative interest loans, and grants, to local government units through the Water Pollution Control Loan Program and to local government units and privately owned community water supplies through the Public Water Supply Loan Program;
        (h) that expanding eligibility to include publicly
    
owned municipal storm water projects eligible for financing as treatment works, as defined under Section 212 of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, will provide the Agency with the statutory authority to use moneys in the Water Pollution Control Loan Program to provide financial assistance for eligible projects, including those that encourage green infrastructure, that manage and treat storm water, and that maintain and restore natural hydrology by infiltrating, evapotranspiring, and capturing and using storm water;
        (i) that in planning projects for which financing
    
will be sought from the Water Pollution Control Loan Program, municipalities may benefit from efforts to consider a project’s lifetime costs; the availability of long-term funding for the construction, operation, maintenance, and replacement of the project; the resilience of the project to the effects of climate change; the project’s ability to increase water efficiency; the capacity of the project to restore natural hydrology or to preserve or restore landscape features; the cost-effectiveness of the project; and the overall environmental innovativeness of the project; and
        (j) that projects implementing a management program
    
established under Section 319 of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act may benefit from the creation of a linked deposit program that would make loans available at or below market interest rates through private lenders.
lawyer at desk

Ask a legal question, get an answer ASAP!
Click here to chat with a lawyer about your rights.

Terms Used In Illinois Compiled Statutes 415 ILCS 5/19.1

  • Agency: means the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency. See Illinois Compiled Statutes 415 ILCS 5/19.2
  • Construction: means any one or more of the following which is undertaken for a public purpose: preliminary planning to determine the feasibility of the treatment works or public water supply, engineering, architectural, legal, fiscal or economic investigations or studies, surveys, designs, plans, working drawings, specifications, procedures or other necessary actions, erection, building, acquisition, alteration, remodeling, improvement or extension of treatment works or public water supplies, or the inspection or supervision of any of the foregoing items. See Illinois Compiled Statutes 415 ILCS 5/19.2
  • Fund: means the Water Revolving Fund created pursuant to this Title, consisting of the Water Pollution Control Loan Program, the Public Water Supply Loan Program, and the Loan Support Program. See Illinois Compiled Statutes 415 ILCS 5/19.2
  • Loan: means a loan made from the Water Pollution Control Loan Program or the Public Water Supply Loan Program to an eligible applicant as a result of a contractual agreement between the Agency and such applicant. See Illinois Compiled Statutes 415 ILCS 5/19.2
  • Municipalities: has the meaning established in Section 1 of Article VII of the Constitution of the State of Illinois of 1970. See Illinois Compiled Statutes 5 ILCS 70/1.27
  • State: when applied to different parts of the United States, may be construed to include the District of Columbia and the several territories, and the words "United States" may be construed to include the said district and territories. See Illinois Compiled Statutes 5 ILCS 70/1.14
  • Treatment works: means treatment works, as defined in Section 212 of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, including, but not limited to, the following: any devices and systems owned by a local government unit and used in the storage, treatment, recycling, and reclamation of sewerage or industrial wastes of a liquid nature, including intercepting sewers, outfall sewers, sewage collection systems, pumping power and other equipment, and appurtenances; extensions, improvements, remodeling, additions, and alterations thereof; elements essential to provide a reliable recycled supply, such as standby treatment units and clear well facilities; any works, including site acquisition of the land that will be an integral part of the treatment process for wastewater facilities; and any other method or system for preventing, abating, reducing, storing, treating, separating, or disposing of municipal waste, including storm water runoff, or industrial waste, including waste in combined storm water and sanitary sewer systems as those terms are defined in the Federal Water Pollution Control Act. See Illinois Compiled Statutes 415 ILCS 5/19.2
  Previous section
Next section  
 Title IV-A Contents