It is inarguable that the funding made available to towns from the Cape and Islands Water Protection Fund (the Fund) has sparked long overdue investment in water quality restoration projects. The evidence is clear. Over $120 million has been awarded to eight Cape towns over the last three years, providing a source of principal forgiveness on loans that lowered town construction costs by 25 percent. That’s serious property tax relief for residents who pay for these projects.
Further evidence of the power of the Fund to motivate towns to proceed with long overdue and much needed projects can be seen by looking at the draft list of town projects selected for state loans. The list supports over $400 million in new project activity for Cape towns. No small part of the equation prompting towns to seek the state loans that are the prerequisite for accessing the principal subsidy provided by the Fund is how attractive the Fund makes financing these major projects. And that is now the rub.
The unprecedented level of project activity proposed by the towns is exactly what is needed to first arrest, and then reverse, the decline in water quality. The sharp surge in the number of projects seeking financing has strained the revenue model on which the Fund was based. Simply put, there is a risk that the subsidy amount available to each project in the short term may have to be reduced in order to support all the projects on the table. The success and effectiveness of the Fund is now a threat to its robust and substantial subsidy. There is a fear that towns will slow down on projects waiting for the funding levels to increase.
While understandable at one level, slowing down on projects would be the wrong thing for the Cape, our environment and economy. Rather than sit back and watch what happens, we here at APCC have mobilized and are deep in discussions with our partners at the Cape Cod Commission, the Fund Board, and the legislative delegation to find the right levers to pull to bring additional resources to the Fund and maintain the momentum we have fought so hard to spur.
The Fund is one of the great public policy success stories of this century. We owe it to ourselves and the water resources of Cape Cod to work hard to adjust to success and keep it rolling.
