The city is implementing comprehensive digital accessibility standards across all municipal departments, contractors, and public platforms to ensure inclusive access to government information and readiness for AI technologies. Additionally, officials outlined a $280 million mitigation strategy to address evolving state and federal regulations concerning PFAS "forever chemicals" in local drinking water. This multi-faceted effort involves staggering infrastructure upgrades at eight water production stations while actively securing funding through federal grants, state loans, and class-action lawsuit settlements.
Cross_cutting
City Council Workshops · May 04, 2026 · 1:03:58–1:04:36 · Watch on CVTV ↗
What was said
1:02:52 you will be seeing in early June, as well as design services for water station one will be coming in a few weeks as well to get started on that treatment project. Also have a scheduled workshop, I believe, also mid-June for the funding strategies and utility rates. And we are also looking at new sources, drilling new wells, and deeper aquifers that do not have the PFAS concentrations in those. And this generally concludes the update of the presentation. And we'd be happy to take some questions. Thank you, Chris. Thank you, Maren and McEnerny-Ogle, Mayor. Maren, on your slide seven, you talked about the funding entities being Washington state. Any federal funds coming in? That's a great question, Mayor.
1:03:49 Specifically, the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund essentially pulls from federal dollars. So to provide some more context, the SRF funds, so the DWSRF funds, pull from the BIL, which I believe stands for the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law for federal dollars. So we do have federal funding requirements embedded in the state funding programs. It is state administered. And so Washington state is the entity. But there are other avenues that the water utility and public works have been looking at. WIFIA is another such loan program, which I believe stands for the Water Infrastructure Funding Innovation Act. Please don't quote me on that. Something around that line. But those are federal dollars as well that the public works and the utility is looking at as well. Because the state of Washington has returned money
1:04:47 because it wasn't lead, we have been advocating back with our lobbyists in DC for any water quality funding, not just lead pipes. So the PFAs can fall underneath that category. So we'll keep working on that. Counselors? Counselor Stover, go ahead. - Thank you, Mayor. And thank you to the two of you for the presentation just continuing to fall up. The bipartisan infrastructure law funding is coming to a close. There's not really the opportunity to influence how those dollars are being spent at this point. That being said, I'm sitting on a committee with National League of Cities and emphasizing our meeting this week to our federal lobbyists through that organization
Evidence (1 match)
semantic semantic 1:03:58–1:04:36
so the DWSRF funds, pull from the BIL, which I believe stands for the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law for federal dollars. So we do have federal funding requirements embedded in the state funding programs. It is state administered. And so Washington state is the entity. But there are other avenues that the water utility and public works have been looking at. WIFIA is another such loan program, which I believe stands for the Water Infrastructure Funding Innovation Act. Please don't quote me on that.