The Wichita State University Environmental Finance Center (WSU EFC) will host a webinar to showcase its new online Community Sustainability Tool form 10 to 11 a.m. on Thursday, Aug. 19.
The tool is a free, easy-to-use online resource that can help communities understand their capacity to finance water and wastewater infrastructure investments. The tool is available for the states of Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska. During the webinar, EFC staff will provide a short overview of the tool and conduct an open session for participants to work through the tool with live, on-hand assistance.
The tool relies on data from the U.S. Census Bureau to broadly forecast communities’ median household income and compares that to user-input data of a community’s average water bill and planned infrastructure development financing costs.
The EFC received grant funding from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to develop this tool that provides decision makers financial and infrastructure development information so they can make the best decisions for their community. The EFC has received additional EPA funding to develop the tool for the states of Oklahoma and Louisiana and EFC will complete this effort in the fall.