Local Affairs
Pennsylvania’s water infrastructure lender approved $190.3 million for 24 drinking water, wastewater and farm runoff projects in 19 counties, Gov. Josh Shapiro’s administration announced Wednesday, Oct. 21. The awards from the Pennsylvania Infrastructure Investment Authority, known as PENNVEST, pay for pipe replacement, treatment plant upgrades and new storage tanks that will be built by contractors over the coming construction seasons.
The state did not publish a jobs estimate for the round, and none should be inferred from the dollar total. What the project list does show is the scale of the physical work: tens of thousands of feet of water and sewer main, roughly 2,400 lead or galvanized service lines across three named projects, and new treatment buildings at several sites.
Where the money goes
The round includes 14 drinking water projects, eight wastewater projects and two non-point source projects. Based on the individual awards listed in the release, about $73.6 million comes as grants and about $116.7 million as loans. The state notes that for projects funded with federal state revolving fund or Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act money, a “grant” may be a principal-forgiveness loan that does not have to be repaid.
The largest single award is a $38 million loan to Pennsylvania-American Water Co. to build combined sewer overflow storage in Scranton as part of its acquisition of the Scranton Sewer Authority. The work includes a 0.4-million-gallon storage facility at the Gordon Avenue overflow point and a 2-million-gallon facility at two other overflow points, built from precast post-tensioned tanks.
Among the other awards, the Conemaugh Township Municipal Authority in Somerset County received a $14,597,215 grant and a $4,669,785 loan to install about 44,000 feet of water main, five district metering vaults and a new monitoring system covering 20 facilities.
The Bear Valley, Franklin County, Pennsylvania, Joint Authority received a $22.25 million loan that will pay for, among other things, replacing about 43,000 feet of distribution pipe with larger mains of up to 16 inches.
The Erie City Water Authority received a $10 million grant to replace about 1,250 galvanized service connections that were attached to lead components.
The Municipal Authority of Westmoreland County received a $5,396,637 grant and a $4,603,363 loan to replace about 1,000 residential lead service lines across seven boroughs and townships.
Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority received a $13.6 million loan to replace about 600 catch basins.
The Municipal Authority of the Borough of Somerset received a $13 million grant to rehabilitate or replace about 22,000 feet of sanitary sewer line and 132 manholes.
Several smaller awards target PFAS, the so-called forever chemicals. Buckingham Township in Bucks County received $3.12 million and Aqua Pennsylvania received $2.546 million in Chester County and $1.72 million in Montgomery County for treatment systems at sites where the state said PFOA and PFOS levels exceed federal limits. The Lakeland School District in Lackawanna County received $352,000 for a treatment system serving about 1,000 students and staff.
What it means for construction work
Most of this work is the kind done by heavy and civil construction crews: excavation, pipe laying, directional drilling, concrete foundations and pump installation. The release describes contractors pulling new copper service lines through trenches on the Norristown lead line project, for example. But it does not say when individual projects will be bid, how long they will run or how many workers they will employ.
The awards land in a state where construction employment has slipped slightly over the past year. Pennsylvania had 262,900 construction jobs in September 2026, seasonally adjusted and preliminary, compared with 264,300 a year earlier, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The administration said that since Shapiro took office it has committed more than $4.9 billion through PENNVEST, supporting projects in 63 counties and replacing more than 45,000 lead service lines. PENNVEST’s funding comes from voter-approved state funds, Growing Greener and Marcellus Legacy funds, the federal infrastructure law, EPA grants under the Clean Water and Safe Drinking Water acts, and repayments of earlier loans.
The Oct. 21 round is smaller than the $306.4 million PENNVEST approved in July 2026 and the $284.2 million it approved in April, according to the agency’s newsroom.
Sources
- Pennsylvania Infrastructure Investment Authority, “Shapiro Administration Announces the Investment of $190.3 Million in Water Infrastructure Projects in 19 Counties Across the Commonwealth,” October 21, 2026. https://www.pa.gov/agencies/pennvest/pennvest-newsroom/pennvest-invests–190-3-million-in-water-infrastructure-projects
- Pennsylvania Infrastructure Investment Authority, “Latest Releases,” accessed October 22, 2026. https://www.pa.gov/agencies/pennvest/pennvest-newsroom
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, State and Metro Area Employment, Pennsylvania construction employment, seasonally adjusted (SMS42000002000000001), accessed October 22, 2026. https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/SMS42000002000000001
Featured photo: An aeration tank at the Oaks Wastewater Treatment Plant in Upper Providence Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, photographed in August 2018 during a Montgomery County Planning Commission facility tour. Representative image; not a project funded in the Oct. 21 PENNVEST round. Photo: Montgomery County Planning Commission, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0). Cropped from the original.
