The Pennsylvania Infrastructure Investment Authority should be reformed to address who can obtain loans and allow the agency to offer refinancing for local governments that originally used a private lending institution to fund their storm water management system, according to a memo issued by a local senator.

The Pennsylvania Infrastructure Investment Authority, also known as PENNVEST, was created to offer low-interest loans to install, repair or provide maintenance to storm water management systems, wastewater treatment and collection systems or publicly and privately owned drinking water distribution and treatment facilities.

PENNVEST is also used to obtain “non-point source investments” in things such as BMP management programs, greyfield and brownfield remediation and acid mine drainage projects, wrote Sen. Scott E. Hutchinson, R-Butler, in his memo.

Hutchinson cited a $50 million loan to Lyme Timber from PENNVEST that allowed the timberland investment company to purchase 67,500 acres of timberland in northwest Pennsylvania as a non-point source investment as an example of the type of non-point source investment his proposed amendment wouldn't allow. In his memo, Hutchinson didn't specify what his new proposed eligibility criteria would be.

—V.H. •