B.R. gets $45M loan from DEQ for sewerage upgrades

Baton Rouge received a $45 million loan from the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality today for sewerage work planned as part of the city-parish’s $1.55 billion Sanity Sewer Overflow program. Specifically, the loan will fund the repair of leaking and broken sewer collection lines, as well as the construction of the Choctaw Sewer Collection Maintenance Facility, which will consolidate several operational facilities within the sewer system, DEQ says. The project also includes improvements at the North Wastewater Treatment Plant. The loan carries a 0.95% interest rate on a 20-year repayment term. “This low-cost loan is the result of our continuing efforts to find inexpensive financing to rehabilitate the sewer system,” says Mayor Kip Holden in a press release. Like conventional bonds that are also being used for the SSO program, city officials say the loan obtained today via DEQ’s Revolving Fund Loan Program will be paid back with revenues from monthly sewer fees and the half-cent sales tax dedicated to sewer improvements.