CADDO MILLS, TEXAS, April 4, 2008—Scooter Brockette, USDA Rural Development Acting State Director, today announced the City of Caddo Mills has been selected to receive $1,528,000 through the agency’s Community Program Water and Waste Disposal Loan and Grant Programs. 

The funding will be used to convert the existing Wastewater Treatment Plant into a wet weather holding area and connect it to a proposed new Wastewater Treatment Plant.  Two new relief sewers in downtown Caddo Mills will also replace two severely deteriorated and partially collapsed sewers.

“USDA Rural Development Water and Waste Disposal Programs target public health benefits and economic opportunities in America’s rural communities,” said Brockette.  “Projects such as this one in the City of Caddo Mills will help make the environment cleaner and protect the public health for local residents.”

In Fiscal Year 2007, $133.9 million of loan and grant assistance was distributed throughout rural Texas to 279,702 households.  The USDA Rural Development Water and Waste Disposal Program is designed to bring fresh, clean drinking water and sanitary, environmentally sound sewage facilities to rural America’s 53 million residents.  Loans and grants are available to rural communities with fewer than 10,000 residents.  Public bodies, corporations operating on a non-profit basis, and Indian tribes, that are unable to obtain credit from other sources at reasonable rates and terms, are eligible for assistance.

USDA Rural Development was created in 1994 to serve Texas’ more than 3.6 million rural residents.  For further information regarding USDA Rural Development Programs, contact the McKinney Local Office at (972) 542-0081, Extension 4, or visit our website at http://www.rurdev.usda.gov/tx/.