Senate Unveils Key Water Infrastructure Bill Yesterday, Senate President Therese Murray, along with Senators Jamie Eldridge and Bruce Tarr, introduced legislation that will take a first significant step to addressing the Commonwealths longstanding water infrastructure needs. The bill incorporates many of the recommendations that came out of the Water Infrastructure Finance Commission, co-chaired by Sen. Eldridge and Rep. Carolyn Dykema, which identified that we need over $21 billion to bring our drinking and wastewater systems into a state of good repair and make necessary improvements. The main component of the bill authorizes the Water Pollution Abatement Trust fund to borrow an additional $50 million a year for local water projects and to make that funding available to communities at low and flexible interest rates. There are incentives for green infrastructure, conservation, regional approaches to water management and $1.5 million for the Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) to provide technical assistance to municipalities. At the event yesterday at the State House to unveil the bill, Senate President Murray, joined by many of her Senate colleagues, noted how fortunate Massachusetts is to be a water-rich state, but that we risk this competitive advantage by not dealing with our water infrastructure needs. Murray also indicated she would like the bill to be taken up by the full Senate by the end of November or in January at the latest. The bill will first be heard by the Joint Committee on Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture.
Posted on: Sun, 06 Oct 2013 15:28:43 +0000
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