[Federal Register Volume 82, Number 181 (Wednesday, September 20, 2017)]
[Notices]
[Page 43964]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2017-19956]



[[Page 43964]]

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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

[EPA-HQ-OW-2017-0518]


Notice of Intent To Prepare a Programmatic Environmental 
Assessment (PEA) for Financing Water and Wastewater Infrastructure 
Projects Pursuant to the Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation 
Act

AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

ACTION: Initiation of scoping.

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SUMMARY: Consistent with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), 
the Council on Environmental Quality's NEPA regulations, and EPA's 
regulations for implementing NEPA, EPA will prepare a Programmatic 
Environmental Assessment (PEA) to analyze the potential environmental 
impacts related to providing individual long-term, low-cost 
supplemental loans or loan guarantees for regionally and nationally 
significant eligible water and wastewater infrastructure projects under 
the Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) Program. 
EPA will use the information in the PEA to determine whether to prepare 
an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). Future proposed actions under 
WIFIA that have potential impacts not sufficiently addressed by this 
PEA may require consideration in a separate NEPA document.
    This notice initiates the scoping process by inviting comments from 
Federal, State, and local agencies, Indian tribes, and the public to 
help identify the environmental issues and reasonable alternatives to 
be examined in the PEA. The scoping process will inform the preparation 
and issuance of the PEA, which will be made available for public 
comment.

DATES: Comments must be received on or before October 20th, 2017.

ADDRESSES: Submit your comments, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OW-
2017-0518 to the Federal eRulemaking Portal: https://www.regulations.gov/. Please follow the online instructions for 
submitting comments. Once submitted, comments cannot be edited or 
withdrawn. The EPA may publish public comments received to its public 
docket. Do not submit electronically any information you consider to be 
Confidential Business Information (CBI) or other information whose 
disclosure is restricted by statute. Multimedia submissions (audio, 
video, etc.) must be accompanied by a written comment. The written 
comment is considered the official comment and should include 
discussion of all points you wish to make. The EPA will generally not 
consider comments or comment contents located outside of the primary 
submission (i.e. on the web, cloud, or other file sharing system). For 
additional submission methods, the full EPA public comment policy, 
information about CBI or multimedia submissions, and general guidance 
on making effective comments, please visit https://www.epa.gov/dockets/commenting-epa-dockets.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Alejandro Escobar, Water 
Infrastructure Division, WIFIA Program, Mail Code: 4201T, Environmental 
Protection Agency, 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue NW., Washington, DC 20460; 
telephone number: 202-564-9047; email address 
[email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: EPA is seeking public comment to determine 
the scope of projects, environmental issues and reasonable alternatives 
to be addressed in the PEA on providing loans or loan guarantees for 
water and wastewater infrastructure projects under the Water 
Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) Program.
    The Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act of 2014 (WIFIA) 
established the WIFIA program, a federal credit program administered by 
EPA for eligible water and wastewater infrastructure projects. WIFIA 
and the WIFIA implementation rule (see 81 FR 91822) outline the 
eligibility and other requirements for prospective borrowers. Eligible 
borrowers are: Local, State, Tribal, and Federal government entities; 
partnerships and joint ventures; corporations and trusts; and Clean 
Water and Drinking Water State Revolving Fund (SRF) programs.
    The WIFIA program can finance development and implementation 
activities for the following eligible projects: Wastewater conveyance 
and treatment projects that are eligible for the Clean Water SRF; 
drinking water treatment and distribution projects that are eligible 
for the Drinking Water SRF; enhanced energy efficiency projects at 
drinking water and wastewater facilities; brackish or seawater 
desalination, aquifer recharge, alternative water supply, and water 
recycling projects; drought prevention, reduction, or mitigation 
projects; acquisition of property if it is integral to the project or 
will mitigate the environmental impact of a project; and a combination 
of projects secured by a common security pledge or submitted under one 
application by an SRF program.
    Eligible development and implementation activities are: Development 
phase activities, including planning, preliminary engineering, design, 
environmental review, revenue forecasting, and other pre-construction 
activities; construction, reconstruction, rehabilitation, and 
replacement activities; acquisition of real property or an interest in 
real property, environmental mitigation, construction contingencies, 
and acquisition of equipment; capitalized interest necessary to meet 
market requirements, reasonably required reserve funds, capital 
issuance expenses and other carrying costs during construction.
    EPA is currently planning to analyze two alternatives in the PEA: 
No Action, that is not providing financing; and the proposed action, 
which is providing financing to individual selected applicants. The PEA 
will focus its analysis on the potential environmental impacts of both 
alternatives. Subject areas to be addressed include, but are not 
limited to: Public health, water quality and quantity (surface and 
groundwater), historic properties, and threatened and endangered 
species.

    Dated: September 14, 2017.
Kelly Knight,
Director, NEPA Compliance Division, Office of Federal Activities.
[FR Doc. 2017-19956 Filed 9-19-17; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 6560-50-P