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Dec. 3, 2024 |  By: Allison Kite - Missouri Independent

Missouri DNR’s $640M loan for St. Louis wastewater upgrades the largest in state history

wastewater

By Allison Kite - Missouri Independent

St. Louis’ sewer district will receive the largest loan in the history of Missouri’s clean water fund — equal to almost the entire current balance of the state’s fund for similar projects. 

The Missouri Department of Natural Resources announced Monday that it had awarded a $640 million loan to the Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District to upgrade its wastewater system. The loan covers the entire cost of the project and will save ratepayers in the district about $402 million in interest payments over the 30-year term of the loan, the release says. 

The project includes replacing incinerators at two wastewater treatment facilities to reduce air pollution and new solids processing buildings. It’s expected to be completed by December 2028. 

The Metropolitan St. Louis Sew District’s executive director, Bret Berthold, said in the release it was the largest project the district had ever undertaken.

“It will significantly improve air quality, reduce emissions and support a healthier future for our region,” Berthold said.

Gov. Mike Parson said in the release that the project reflects the fact that “significant endeavors usually require substantial investment.” 

“We are absolutely committed to making sure that Missourians in every community have access to quality infrastructure that they rely on every day for life, health and economic opportunity,” Parson said. 

The money will come from Missouri’s Clean Water State Revolving Fund, which offers loans at below-market interest rates to communities across Missouri. Cities and sewer districts can use the loans to finance upgrades to their wastewater and sewer systems.

At the end of last month, the Clean Water State Revolving Fund had a balance of $649 million, only a few million dollars more than St. Louis is set to receive. 

But the department’s spokesman, Brian Quinn, said St. Louis’ loan won’t wipe out the fund for other borrowers. The fund, he said, receives payments from other loans at the same time it grants new ones. 

And St. Louis and other borrowers don’t receive their whole loan at once. Quinn said projects typically receive disbursements over a year and a half or two years, so the St. Louis sewer district won’t get its $640 million as a lump sum. 

Dru Buntin, the Department of Natural Resource’s director, said the agency was proud to grant the “record level of assistance for a massive wastewater project that will have such a positive impact for many years to come.”