Utility Saves Big on CSO Project Financing

Akron, Ohio, has been under a federal consent decree since 2009 to improve management of CSOs. One of its latest projects as part of that effort is a 2.4-million-gallon concrete storage basin, designed to hold excess flow during high rainfall in a “typical year” event and keep it out of the Little Cuyahoga River.The basin project, which began in the fall of 2016 and is scheduled to finish by the end of the year, is coming in at $17 million less than if the city had financed it at the 3.68 percent market rate. That’s because of a 45-year, $22