Seminole Municipal Authority Receives $1,738,146 Water System Funding from the OWRB
OKLAHOMA CITY – Seminole Municipal Authority (Authority) received approval for $1,738,146 in funding on Tuesday, including $1,000,000 of principal forgiveness, from the Oklahoma Water Resources Board (OWRB) to improve the District’s water infrastructure. Construction of upgrades and improvements to the water system will be financed by the Oklahoma Drinking Water State Revolving Fund (DWSRF).
The Authority’s existing aging water meter system has contributed to overall system inefficiency and unmetered water loss. The approved funds will be utilized to replace over 3,200 inefficient water meters with new reliable meters incorporated with an advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) system. This upgraded infrastructure will improve operational efficiency, enable early leak detection, and reduce water loss, while also providing a more secure and accurate metering system.
Lori Johnson, chief of the OWRB’s Financial Assistance Division, calculated that the Authority’s customers will save an estimated $1,710,700 compared to traditional financing. The DWSRF loan will be secured with a lien on the revenues of the District’s water services.
Seminole Municipal Authority’s officials attending the OWRB’s monthly meeting in support of the loan application included Public Works Director Bryant Baker. “I would like to thank the OWRB and the board members for looking at this program,” Baker said. “This gives us a great opportunity as a community and as a city, to move forward and better protect the water service that we are providing.”
Julie Cunningham, Executive Director of the OWRB, and Rob Singletary, Executive Director of the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality (ODEQ), express their sincere appreciation to State Senator Grant Green and State Representative Danny Williams for their support of the DWSRF program.
The DWSRF program is administered by the OWRB and ODEQ with partial funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The DWSRF program has provided approximately $2.5 billion in drinking water loans to provide communities with the resources necessary to maintain and improve the infrastructure that protects our valuable water resources statewide.
Since 1983, the Oklahoma Water Resources Board has approved over $8.3 billion in loans and grants for water and wastewater infrastructure improvements throughout Oklahoma.
Established in 1957, the Oklahoma Water Resources Board (OWRB) serves as the state’s water resources planning and development agency. A nine-member Board oversees the OWRB, with members appointed by the Governor to represent nine geographic regions and water-use sectors. The OWRB is committed to managing, protecting, and improving Oklahoma’s water resources to meet long-term water supply, water quality, flood mitigation, and infrastructure needs. For more information, visit Oklahoma.gov/owrb.
