Delegate Michael Webert’s bill authorizing loans and grants for agricultural best management practices has advanced to the House floor where it’s now expected to pass.
HB 2637 (Webert) authorizes the State Water Control Board (Board) to issue loans and grants from the Virginia Water Facilities Revolving Fund for the construction, renovation, improvement, or equipping of facilities or structures to implement agricultural best management practices to prevent pollution of state waters. Current law only authorizes these loans and grants for the construction of such facilities and structures, so this law greatly expands the eligibility of this program. Furthermore, the bill includes riparian buffers planted in trees as eligible “facilities or structures.”
Notably, grants and loans of this nature may be made to local governments that have developed a low-interest loan program to provide loans or other incentives to facilitate the construction, renovation, improvement, or equipping of such facilities or structures or to financial institutions working with local governments to establish such a program.
HB 2637 reported from the House Agriculture, Chesapeake and Natural Resources Committee, 22-0, and will be heard on the House floor this week.
VACo Contact: Chris McDonald, Esq.