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just put me like that all right it's about 12 o'clock here in arkansas i think we'll go ahead and get started with today's program this is the beaver watershed alliance quarterly speaker series and our topic today is innovative funding mechanisms for conservation and restoration we're all very excited to have you all here today hope everyone's staying warm no matter where you are and we have a great lineup of speakers today so we look forward to today's program um i want to start out a little bit about the beaver watershed alliance we're a non-profit located up in northwest arkansas working to proactively protect enhance and sustain water quality in beaver lake and the integrity of its watershed and we do that through education and outreach technical assistance and scientific monitoring the beaver lake reservoir is an impaired reservoir in northwest arkansas and it is an arkansas state priority watershed and our biggest challenges are sediment and nutrients such as phosphorus and nitrogen and beaver lake is important to our region because it supplies water for over half a million people and it also produces hydroelectric power it's a big recreation and tourism spot and it's really a cornerstone of our community for growth and economic development the alliance works with several partners and we just wanted to say thank you to all of our partners that help make our work possible and all of our speakers today we want to thank them for joining for today's speaker series so we have allison souters who's going to kick us off she's with the u.s epa clean water fund allison is a financial analyst for the clean water state revolving fund at epa headquarters in washington dc though the clean water fund is more known for financing great infrastructure projects her work has mostly focused on increasing the amount of assistance going to non-point source and conservation projects across the country prior to epa allison was a peace corps volunteer in senegal and worked for a usaid contractor so allison i'm going to stop sharing my screen and hand this over to you thanks for being here thank you let me get this set up to share my [Music] um presentation real quick thanks for introducing me um like becky said i'm allison sauders with the clean water state revolving fund at epa headquarters in washington dc um oops just trying to figure out how to get this to do full screen well full screen mode sorry about that can everyone see the presentation i might just leave it like this okay so i'm going to start off with kind of a general overview from the federal level of the state revolving funds um for arkansas specific things i'll probably um obviously let that to debbie who will be speaking later um from the arkansas program so to get started the cwsrf the cleanwater state revolving fund operates in all states in puerto rico and they are capitalized annually by a cap by a grant from the us epa the state then provides a 20 match and many states also choose to leverage their programs by going to the bond market the states then use these funds to make low-interest loans to eligible assistance recipients for water quality improvement projects um the principal repayments and interest earnings are then recycled back into each program and used to finance new projects allowing the funds to revolve over time so in general the cws are apps offer terms up to 30 years or the useful life of the project whichever is less we offer below below market interest rates um from zero to market rate um savings called additional subsidies that we'll talk about on the next slide that can kind of help um ease some of the burden of a loan for some borrowers and generally repayment starts one year after project completion so like i mentioned the cwsrs can offer something called additional subsidization we can offer it in the form of loan forgiveness negative interest rate loans and grants each state decides based on federal requirements where to target this additional subsidization um but at least 10 of the funds each year have to go to this so this slide is account is showing a calculator that the environmental finance center at the university of north carolina created to show the savings that cws ref loans can offer um and they would it would work for any program across the country so if you kind of look here this is looking at a loan that includes some principal forgiveness like i mentioned is part of the ad sub the subsidized interest rate of 1.5 which is half the market rate which is kind of accurate um for most states right now and then the estimated project cost so in this case on the 500 loan um with the lower interest rate and 10 thousand dollars of principal forgiveness the borrower would save over 116 000 over the life of the loan which ends up being equivalent to grant so the cwsrf potential borrowers must identify a repayment source which might not be um it may not be as easy for non-profits or watershed organizations to come up with a revenue stream whereas a municipality or water utility can use their user rates so we've seen a lot of borrowers with creative repayment streams like timber harvest revenues um we've seen carbon credits go back to repaying a land conservation um a land conservation loan homeowners association fees hunting licenses um etc there's been lots of different cases and the cws or apps the state programs will usually help help out um figuring that out so next the this is just an overview of the statutory eligibilities offered by the clean water act for the clean water state revolving fund um there are 12 in total but they are very broad in scope ranging from of course um construction and updates of publicly owned treatment works and um implementation of nonpoint source management plans or any national estuary program ccmps but there's a myriad of other eligibilities that can go toward watershed protection and restoration to take a look at the full suite you can go ahead and there's the link on this slide so these are just a few of the project categories um that we offer federally that would maybe have to do with watershed restoration and protection on land conservation source water protection ag best management practices which i know arkansas does a good bit of groundwater protection habitat restoration and again you can look at the overview of our eligibilities to learn more about those so these eligibilities are state specific so um i i'm pretty sure this slide lines up with arkansas in most cases except for private entities for um has a caveat but for programs federally um who is eligible to borrow would be communities we see a lot of municipalities treatment plants conservation districts non-profits there's been private entities in several states that have worked with the cw srf in different ways and citizen groups so just to kind of show the scope of the program we have provided 145.5 billion dollars for water quality improvement projects since the program started in 1988. um that's about 42 000 assistance agreements or projects if you if can equate roughly to that um however something that we're working to kind of quicken the pace of the upward trend is that just 3.6 of the overall funding nationally has gone towards non-point source pollution um whereas a lot of the water pollution now is actually coming from those sources so we're trying to kind of even out where um the funding towards nonpoint source pollution where it's actually coming from um the next slide shows some of the innovative financing structures that clean water state revolving fund programs offer around the country which may not be um the case for arkansas but um this this document the financing options for non-traditional eligibilities actually has um sections for each each option and different case studies from states most of these financing mechanisms are to help reduce burden for the borrowers or to help reach borrowers who may not otherwise be eligible um so yeah okay so now i'll just give a few different examples um they're not necessarily from arkansas but this would be possible in arkansas um so the cwsrf can provide match for grants in this case the cocoa beach florida minuteman causeway project was for um green infrastructure and they got a low interest rate loan to provide match for the 319 non-point source grant there are many partnership opportunities in the clean water state revolving fund we've seen a lot of projects be co-funded by multiple sources and kind of gotten off the ground championed by folks who might not even be a borrower so this was a project in virginia um in the last few years that was actually the largest open space conservation easement in the um state so the nature conservancy worked with the va department of forestry and the clean water state revolving fund to make that happen so and i'll just kind of quickly go over the drinking water state revolving fund has set asides available for source water protection that some states take advantage of um and they can provide loans to public water systems for source border protection easements the plannings and capacity development so the next slide is just an example of how the programs can work together as well to kind of leverage leverage their funds so this was a project in skagit washington where a dwsrf grant from their local assistant set aside was used to appraise the property value and then the community was able to take that information to the cws or app and got a loan to purchase the 205 250 acres of forest so at headquarters we've been discussing the concept of watershed finance partnerships um implementing water quality projects on a watershed basis using some mix of srf financing public private just kind of getting groups together in a watershed um and we've been thinking about and partners need not be the actual borrower there are several roles um that organizations may be able to play regardless of whether they're able to take on a loan or not um a watershed partner may act as a broker identifying non-point source projects within the watershed and kind of presenting them or bringing them to the cwsrf or dws are up for funding um they may act as an intermediary funding projects taking on the loan and then making sub loans or grants to additional partners to implement projects and lastly the watershed partner could actually receive the loan to implement a group of projects within their watershed so wrapping up these are kind of next steps reach out to debbie dixon reach out to arkansas or the state that you are in um the next slide has a link to the state to the different state programs because i understand there are some folks here from outside of arkansas so you would want to check your state program's intended use plan um and that is where each state lists what they can fund for the coming year and sign up for the newsletter for updates i can provide that link in the chat too and if anyone have questions go ahead and i guess ask in the chat but um that is all for now so here um not sure if these slides will be shared but i can provide these links to anyone that would like them and reach out if you have any questions here's my email address and also just our general inbox probably easier to remember thank you well thank you allison um we do have one question here um a little time to for that question um and while we're doing this uh jeff you can go ahead and pull up your screen and um so allison does the epa clean water state revolving loan fund um whoops have a federal level guidance for prioritizing green infrastructure versus gray infrastructure um this person says i know the state can and uh set their own priorities right that's correct so the state does um set their own priorities and direct their financing to those projects um we don't have actual federal level guidance for prioritizing great infrastructure versus gray um we have a lot of documents out there like the financing options paper kind of hoping to um provide some support to states and borrowers who might be interested in green infrastructure and then we also have a federal requirement called the green project reserve where a certain portion of projects in each state each year have to go towards innovation water efficiency energy efficiency which could in include storm water hope that helps thank you allison and thanks evan for the question we appreciate that and um yeah before i introduce our next speaker um this presentation will be recorded and available on the beaver watershed alliance youtube channel and if you do want a copy of today's presentations please do reach out and we'd be happy to connect you with the speakers or have a copy of the presentations so okay our next speaker is jeff lerner and jeff is with the u.s endowment and healthy watersheds consortium for the past seven years jeff has helped develop and manage the healthy watersheds consortium grant program focused on protecting watershed lands to prevent degradation on behalf of the u.s endowment for forestry and communities and in conjunction with the epa and usda natural resources conservation service he has had over 25 years of experience with forest and other habitat conservation throughout the us has worked for several national conservation organizations and holds degrees in zoology conservation biology and sustainable development thanks for being here jeff glad to have you here super thank you becky can you hear me okay yes terrific well hello everybody uh it's great to be here and and thanks again to the beaver watershed alliance for having me i'm here to provide perhaps a little inspiration and some examples on advancing watershed protection through state clean water and drinking water revolving loan funds uh as as becky indicated with the intro i currently help coordinate the healthy watersheds consortium grant program which was in fact conceived by the environmental protection agency and is has become a partnership with the natural resources conservation service nrcs and the u.s endowment for forestry and communities all as equal funding partners and i work as a consultant to the endowment which manages the program and healthy watersheds was again as becky indicated designed to accelerate the protection of watersheds and keep them intact and the program support has supported the capacity of groups like the beaver watershed alliance to advance watershed initiatives with utilities communities private landowners and to help overcome some of the hurdles in getting to protecting more watershed lands and one of the biggest hurdles that many of our our grantees have encountered is funding or financing and we came to see the srfs as possible solutions allison gave a great overview of the srfs i just want to reiterate that across the country there is a lot of money revolving in these funds and also that they can be used to address non-point source pollution including the prevention of that pollution um as you saw from some of the examples related to land conservation and also for the protection specifically of source water areas and since these funds are mostly loans that means they must be paid back and that's easier to do with a traditional infrastructure project it's somewhat harder to do for other pieces of watershed infrastructure like this stream and the surrounding forest but it's not impossible and one of our grantees the western rivers conservancy did protect this 47 000 acre area using a combination of sources including an srf loan and the loan was for about 19 million dollars which was about a third of the costs of this project and it went to the yurok tribe which is a big partner in this effort and the loan interest rate was i believe at zero percent so the iraq tribe will own these lands and they will manage them as a salmon sanctuary and a community forest and the loan will be repaid using sustainable timber harvest revenue and carbon credits so this was a really really big project and it took many years to accomplish and there were many other sources of funding that were involved but the srf dollars were really a key component as a way to finance a part of this project a more recent example comes from portland maine where another one of our grantees is working closely with the portland water district to protect the sebago lake watershed which serves abo t 200 000 people the district has made an annual commitment to watershed protection for several years which then is leveraged with other dollars that are often raised by some of their partners which are usually local land trusts the sebago clean water initiative recently worked with the portland water district to help secure a drinking water srf loan and also a grant from the program to help pay for the protection in the watershed and to help create about a 1500 acre community forest in the process and so then building on that momentum the portland water district successfully applied recently to the nrcs rcpp program and now has an eight million dollar grant from that program which they're going to then leverage further into about 19 million dollars of funding overall which will give them the ability to protect another 7 000 acres so you can see that they're rapidly moving in the direction of implementing their larger watershed protection goals and they're likely going to use srf again as part of that package of leverage for their rcpp grant another watershed initiative with an emerging use of srf comes from texas the texas hill country conservation network works in several watersheds in the austin area austin metro area there are several opportunities to protect private ranch lands which can help conserve drinking water supply and prevent non-point source pollutants and austin has had a watershed protection program for many years and so the network is working to expand that concept to other communities accessing the srf is for watershed protection is kind of a new idea in the state and they recently worked with hayes county one of the surrounding communities to propose a 30 million dollar srf loan to support a water quality land protection fund which could be used for multiple protection projects and the loan is being considered currently as part of the state uh intended use plan the those iups or intended use plans that allison mentioned are developed each year um and this uh this 30 million loan is currently being considered for funding and if it's successful they plan to work with additional communities on similar loans so bundling watershed projects into a single loan or creating a protection fund is a fairly novel idea although it might be worth noting that my understanding is srfs do have the ability to support portfolio financing or programmatic financing so there may be sort of a precedent for this kind of thinking within the srfs and so far i've talked about srf loans for watershed protection but it's not always easy to find that revenue stream to repay a loan and so while you can use srf funds to protect watersheds many states do not do that currently and possibly because there's no revenue stream for that repayment but the srfs can be creative and flexible and one approach that partly solves this problem is called sponsorship and it was listed among the different innovative finance mechanisms that allison had in her presentation and it's a way to fund watershed projects by connecting them to more traditional loans so the way that this works is that a large larger infrastructure project adopts or sponsors a watershed protection or restoration project in the same loan agreement and by lowering the interest rates the srf can use a part of those funds to pay for the sponsorship project the lowered rate is an incentive to the borrower and it may not hurt the overall program financially and it accomplishes your nonpoint source pollution reduction and prevention goals the loan in this case is doing double duty for both traditional infrastructure and what you might call green infrastructure and a key point is that funding for the sponsorship project is not considered a grant and for it to work the cost of the watershed project needs to be much less than the infrastructure project and it also helps if the interest rates are higher so there's more flexibility to adjust them and right now we know interest rates are fairly low um some state srfs can make discounted incentive loan rates to make it attractive to the borrower so if you look at this slide you can see that by adjusting that interest rate from 3.8 percent to 0.3 percent you can make it such that the cost of doing the project the traditional project or the project with the sponsored project along with it is essentially the same over a 20-year period and it works credit really goes to the ohio epa for dreaming up this idea about 20 years ago they've had a program going for that length of time and it's it's been it continues to be going strong it's a sophisticated program with a separate application process and the agency employs watershed ecologists that can help advise on projects and ultimately approve them and compared to the size of their overall srf this is not a large program but they do contribute 15 million dollars a year and that can get a lot done and it's also worth comparing to your traditional section 319 grant funds which are allocated among the states so in arkansas those nonpoint source pollution reduction or prevention grants are funded at approximately two million dollars a year and so theoretically let's say if arkansas created a sponsorship program it might be able to double or triple the funding for non-point source projects throughout the state and it's worth noting that the srfs keep increasing in size over time as well and just to put a fine point on this one of our other grantees helps coordinate something called the central lake erie basin collaborative and they work cooperatively to preserve and restore eight major watersheds uh up in northern ohio they work collaboratively to preserve um uh these lands in in collaboration with the northeast ohio sewer district which serves the the cleveland metro area specifically and they utilize the ohio sponsorship program among other sources to fund protection and restoration projects and they and they work pretty closely with local governments they've also developed a pretty ambitious protection goal of over three hundred thousand acres and about three thousand stream miles but they've also estimated the price tag for that work to be about 475 million dollars so that sounds like a really large number but it's also a very large watershed area that they've focused on and spread over 25 years and over 80 communities and parts of 16 counties it becomes to you know begins to seem a little bit more manageable to get to that that large goal of funding and because they already work with the srf the collaborative is considering other ways they might look to the srf for additional financing options okay the last example i wanted to share the catawba watery watershed serves the charlotte metro area in north and south carolina and they they're this is where another one of our grantees is located uh this initiative involves 18 different water utilities that meet regularly as something called the water management group the partners recently completed a new source water protection tool to help guide their active protection efforts in the last couple of years they've protected about 15 000 acres of land in the watershed and most of this protection is funded with uh traditional grant sources but we've recently introduced them to the idea of sponsorship and we had some good discussions with the srfs in both north carolina and south carolina and the utilities many of whom already borrow from the srf are interested in trying some sponsorship projects and so that's where we are now in trying to identify where these projects might be and bringing those ideas forward to the srf and i'd also say that because of the strong partnership that exists here among the utilities coordinating something like a watershed financing partnership like allison talked about in this landscape might be much easier and in fact would be kind of the preferred option uh from the srs perspective because they'd be getting all these different uh projects kind of coordinated together in a watershed initiative okay so bringing things back to arkansas as i wrap up i just wanted to emphasize that connection between land and water i want to point out the recently completed state forest action plan these plans were updated in most states at the end of last year and the arkansas plan includes a water supply protection strategy it's a couple pages of useful objectives and actions and i just wanted to highlight the strategic focus on drinking water supply watersheds and some of the expected outcomes that they have which are ambitious these plans developed in each of the states are also connected to the u.s forest service funding which goes to many of the states and therefore might be an opportunity to leverage with state srf funding as well the map that i'm showing here shows the priority drinking water supply watersheds that are in the plan and i should also mention that one of our other grantees is central arkansas water in the little rock area which recently issued a green bond to help pay for protection and is already starting to explore some additional financing uh by working with the srf um and i think part of their strategy also involves working with the u.s forest service directly and some of those u.s forest service funding programs so for some next steps you might want to consider in my experience talking with about this topic in different states it's really helpful if you can have specific project ideas in mind when talking to the srfs because then they can provide feedback and advice on how a project might be funded either through the clean water srf or possibly the drinking water srf or as allison mentioned maybe a combination of both and something to also think about is maybe starting with just a pilot project to help get the ball rolling i don't know if if arkansas will ultimately want to create a sponsorship program like ohio has but certainly that would be an option but a pilot to get the ball rolling might be a good option so i've been really um thrilled to have the opportunity to work on the healthy watersheds program it's great to be part of the conversations for some of these large visions for conservation which often affect hundreds of thousands of acres of land and thousands of water users and they and we know that they need to be executed over many many years and so that lends themselves in my opinion toward larger financing solutions and if watersheds are part of our water infrastructure they may be able to be financed in similar ways with the help of the srfs and i'd be happy to talk to anybody a little bit more about the program that we have um or about how to connect srs with some of these different watershed protection efforts so thanks again and with that i will turn it back over to you becky thank you jeff we really appreciate those examples across the us um hopefully maybe inspire some ideas and partnerships uh here in in arkansas so okay just a reminder to everybody um we welcome questions you can use the q a uh box down there or the chat either way we'll see your questions and we're happy to answer those as we go along or if you want to save them for the end i'm just going to make sure you know that we encourage your questions today okay so um our next speaker debbie if you want to go ahead and share your screen i'll work on introducing you today debbie dixon is with the arkansas department of agriculture the natural resources division debbie is a program financial manager helping communities to secure funding for water and sewer infrastructure debbie is a graduate of capella university with a bachelor of science in information and technology a certificate in accounting and over 30 years of accounting experience in various industries including governmental accounting so debbie we really appreciate the arkansas perspective brought in today along with the epa and case studies across the u.s so we're really excited to have you talk a little bit more about what arkansas is doing with this program and and how we might all work together well first let me just ask if i'm i've got the correct screen shared up there can you see the main screen yep yes it looks good oh okay so i will move on and thank you for asking me to speak today and to bring to our participants a uh kind of overview of the state revolving funds in arkansas and in arkansas the natural resources division which has recently been moved under the arkansas department of agriculture manages both the clean water and the drinking water state revolving fund so we have a little bit of a one-stop shop hold on there we go so our our goal is to provide low interest uh solutions to your water and sewer infrastructure needs and that includes the watershed managements we really are looking for good projects to come to us and to help help you figure out how to fund those we currently manage the two federal programs the clean water state revolving fund and the drinking water state revolving fund and we also have three state programs that can also fund these types of projects the eligible entities are a little different for the drinking water state revolving fund we currently have a requirement that it has to be a governmental entity we do have the option to waive that and we have done so several times in the past for the clean water state revolving fund we have the option of doing private entities as well or non-traditional governmental entities and in the state funds we can do either or under the clean water state revolving fund we typically do sewer infrastructure projects that doesn't mean that we don't have the option for other projects we do run a agriculture water quality loan program it's a link deposit program through our clean water state revolving fund to get some non-point source reductions in at the farm level at the agriculture level available but for the most part our traditional loans and loans with principal forgiveness are going to be for sewer infrastructure but with all of that said we're always open to additional project types under drinking water it's it's very similar we do traditionally water system infrastructure projects and under our drinking water we have to have proof that these these projects meet public use tests as prescribed by the federal tax code our current lending rates for our clean water and drinking water are set based on term we have a fee that becomes a part of our lending rate that's how we collect our fees in arkansas on both of our srf programs so we stagger these depending on the type of project the life of the project and the ability of the borrower to repay so we will offer additional subsidization for those that meet those requirements if you've met the requirement for additional subsidization the state does give additional priority to projects that mean greed that meet green project standards or regionalization in addition on the clean water program we have a special lending rate for projects in the illinois river basin and the buffalo river watershed and also for regionalization projects we offer an additional reduced rate for a maximum term up to 30 years depending on the life of the project our state lending program rates are a little bit higher and again we stagger those for either project life or entities ability to repay in addition on the clean water or excuse me in addition on the state funded programs we have a three percent loan origination fee that's due at the time of the loan closing and it can be taken out of the loan proceeds the drinking water set asides are actually managed by the department of health within the state of arkansas through their engineering section they manage the small system technical assistance the water systems management program the wellhead protection program and the capacity development program if anybody has questions about those programs or how they function or work please don't hesitate to contact me and then i can send you to the right person at department of health when should you contact us the sooner you can contact us to tell us what you're considering for a project what options you're looking at maybe who you're working with the sooner we can guide you in the best way to apply for those funds through our process one of the great ways that that we work um as funding agencies in the state is we have uh created what' called the wac committee which is the water and wastewater advisory committee if you have a project that you're not sure where it can be funded you fill out this simple application there's no engineering required in order to fill out this application you fill out what your problem is or what your goal is and how you think you're going to accomplish that you submit that application and then our funding sources will reply back to you and tell you where you could get funding for that where it would be eligible to receive funding and that saves you some application time if you're not sure you're eligible under all of those what is our current application process for arkansas natural resources for all of our state and federal funded programs you are required to submit an application through the wac committee first they meet on the first wednesday of each month once they've met and considered your application they will send out a response telling you where they would recommend you get funding once you've received that you can submit your funding application to arkansas natural resources commission and that's available on our website the akron natural resources commission meets monthly excuse me bi-monthly on the third thursday so we have a new project a new pilot project that we're starting that it's for septic tank remediation we've chosen the illinois river watershed in the upper white beaver lake watershed for this initial implementation to see how successful it is you we've got contact information here we do not yet have applications available we're still working through some of the pre uh pre-set up items in order to get the project funding but we've allocated 1 million out of the clean water srf for both the both of these watershed areas coming coming attractions to me are the uh the new things that we're working on within our within our agency we're moving towards a online system so that all applications disbursements signatures everything can be done through an online application or an online process so that not only can our applicants and borrowers get to their data and submit their information online our internal staff will have a quick reference and be able to help them through the process easier and quick quickly in in addition to moving to this online process we have been working towards streamlining our processes and removing additional requirements that maybe are no longer needed by the federal program and to help shorten our timelines from the time the application is received until the construction can start so here's our bottom line we want to protect our water and land resources to provide safe and economical benefits for the state of arkansas so we're looking to you guys to bring us your ideas and your questions on how we can reach those goals and here we have if you have any questions you can contact ms debra banks our program outreach coordinator or myself and there's a an email for each of us and a generic email that you can contact if you're not sure who you would like to speak to directly and with that i will turn it back to becky wonderful debbie well congratulations on all those upcoming attractions coming to to make that to streamline that process is going to be really helpful i know that took a lot of work i'm sure we're still doing it it probably won't be till fall that we really get there yeah well that's um that's just really great so we did have a question on what is the typical timeline for an srf project as far as the approval process so um it depends on how far the project is in the design phase so we accept projects that have zero design completed so you can apply to us for funding prior to hiring your consulting engineer if you show choose so it a lot depends on that process if you come to us in at that stage and you have a simple process or excuse me a simple project like a pipe replacement we should be able to get you through our entire process loan closed be able to start construction within six months if we're talking about a plant upgrade or anything that requires permit changes it could add additional time based on what those requirements are or how long it takes to design that project thank you let's see and i think that's um any other questions for anyone i had a question about just in general could we maybe think about maybe get an example of how this might be applied in the beaver lake watershed for a non-point source project like if the if we wanted to look at a stream restoration or a some force management um would there be an example that we could maybe hear about on how to accomplish that are you asking if there's an example within the state of arkansas already yeah i would say no we have not done that that i'm aware of with our state revolving funds we have a 319 program in our agency that will that has done some funding like that but we have not and the only reason we have not is we haven't had anybody approach us and in with a project that we could actually come through with with a way to fund it through the state revolving funds now i think we've done some state grants for similar projects but we would definitely be open to doing the partnership where if we could offer a reduced interest rate for a larger project you know if you can work with you know a larger project within the area for a traditional infrastructure project we could definitely look at something like that where we usually struggle is on repayments so um i've heard of a principle forgiveness is that something that's part of the arkansas program or is that what would be the criteria for that if that is an option principle forgiveness is is is deter eligibility for principled forgiveness is determined based on the customers of benefit or the area of benefit so we're still struggling a little bit with how to allocate principal forgiveness to non-traditional products so right now we look at median household income so in order to to qualify you either have to have rates at 1.5 percent of the median household income for the project area or at least 51 percent of the customers who benefit have to either have low or moderate income as defined by the department u.s department of housing and urban developments and have 1.25 percent of median household income so with that said a stream bank restoration project would not have traditional users so we would have to probably look at maybe the watershed as a whole as the beneficiary and if we could qualify it under that we have some options that we could work with that and again if you came to us with a specific project it would help us figure out how to move through those to get it into the eligibility list and that includes principal forgiveness thank you jeff or allison um any other comments or anything we want to share with the group today on this topic i mean i would just reiterate you know kind of a little bit about what uh what debbie said about bringing projects forward i think i've had some different conversations with srfs around the country and there are a number of considerations that they have to evaluate to think about funding a project i think debbie did a good job of describing that but they might fall into different categories like does the program have the financial wherewithal to be able to afford to do these types of non-traditional projects are there policy changes that might need to take place in order to make it possible although it sounds like there's a lot of flexibility within arkansas now and then some srfs have asked is there a pipeline of projects are is there a demand for these types of projects so if you're going to go ahead and create a new program or offer another way of utilizing your srf is there going to be a demand and so that's where i'd say i'd kind of put it back on the audience here and say if you if you bring project ideas forward and the srf's aware that there's an interest then i think they can um they can think of more about um how to accommodate that and and build programs appropriately around those types of needs and to to add to that i would just like to say that oftentimes it's not so much getting getting the um the policies changed we can usually work through that process it's implementing the first one once you get through that first project and how to get there and how to fund it and how to approve it and what requirements are changed then the next one is a lot easier because you've already set everything in place so getting through that first one is usually the most difficult so having people come to us with suggestions and ideas or projects in particular that they want to accomplish and complete will help us get through that process and see if we can figure out a way to fund it yeah i would just agree with everything that deborah and nick said bringing the projects to the srf um jeff had talked about the importance of like the different partnerships and relationships so um if i was a watershed organization i'd probably reach out to my local utility and the srf um arkansas is uniquely set up with the um the whack um so it sounds like partnerships could be kind of um put together a little bit easier there since you're coming into most of the water funders in the state so i guess another consideration is maybe uh thinking about srfs as a as a component of funding for some of these you know whether it's sponsorship or whether it's a traditional loan it may not cover the entire cost of what you're trying to do but having having additional funds that could potentially be used as match to other federal programs that you might apply for competitively whether it's forest service money or or nrcs money or other money you know maybe an srf could actually be utilized that way i think you'd have to think about the source of the funding because some of the money as allison indicated is federal and then some of it is is state money but to me it seems like that could be worked out such that you may actually be able to have non-federal match for some of these other competitive grant programs that might be a way of fleshing out your your finance for a large watershed project or bundle of projects well we just wanted to say thank you all so much allison jeff and debbie for being here today and we also want to thank everybody that joined with us online um again this uh this presentation was through the beaver watershed alliance this is our speaker series we put these on quarterly to talk about the investments for source water drinking supplies if you'd like more information about us or anything you've heard today feel free to contact us at info at beaverwatershedalliance.org it's our email or you can dial 479-750-8007 we also have a number of ways to connect with us through facebook our youtube channel we will put these programs online we have a podcast called we are water and we also encourage you to visit our website to learn more so i think with that um we finished a little bit early so which is great and again just thank you all so much for being here today and um yeah i hope everybody stays warm and has a good rest of your day thank you all so much thank you thank you appreciate it