DC Water issued $350 million in tax-exempt, fixed rate bonds today, including $100 million designated as Green Bonds. It is the Authority’s second green bond issuance in as many years.

The proceeds of the Green Bonds will be used to finance a portion of the DC Clean Rivers Project, a $2.6 billion dollar effort to significantly reduce combined sewer overflows into waterways in the District of Columbia. The project achieves several green benefits including improving water quality for the District, and providing flood mitigation and waterway restoration.

DC Water offered the Green Bonds during a priority order period restricted to retail and green portfolio investors. Market reception was strong for the Green Bonds, with nearly all maturities being oversold, which allowed DC Water to lower yields in most maturities by 2-6 basis points.

The $250 million Series B bonds will be used to finance other capital projects and to pay down a portion of the Authoritys commercial paper program.

"Today was a good day in the capital markets for DC Water and for our ratepayers,” said Mark Kim, DC Water’s Chief Financial Officer. “We achieved an all-in cost of funds of less than 4 percent and took advantage of favorable market conditions to lock-in yields near all-time historic lows."

DC Water General Manager George S. Hawkins, said, “Coming to the market for the second straight year to offer Green Bonds, reaffirms our commitment to environmentally beneficial projects, and the response shows there is a strong market out there for investments that support sustainable work in the community.”

In recent years, DC Water has had tremendous success in the bond market. In 2014, the Authority issued $350 million in Green Century Bonds – the first century bond issued by a water/wastewater utility in the United States, and the first “certified” green bond in the U.S. debt capital markets with an independent second party opinion on sustainability.

In 2013, DC Water issued $300 million in bonds in a one-day sale and in 2012, DC Water issued $277 million in new bond financing and re-issued $163 million at much lower interest rates. In 2009, all $300 million in bonds sold to retail and institutional investors in one day.