The Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s ruling in the Borough of West Chester case found that one borough’s stormwater charge was really a tax. It left a big question hanging for every municipal authority that bills property owners for stormwater work: does that ruling reach them too? Two cases, one in Williamsport and one in Pittsburgh, are now working their way toward an answer.
The West Chester decision dealt with a borough’s taxing power, not with authorities created under the Municipality Authorities Act. In Lycoming County, a judge upheld the Williamsport Sanitary Authority’s stormwater fee, and that ruling is now on appeal to Commonwealth Court. In Allegheny County, the School District of Pittsburgh is suing the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority (PWSA) to stop its stormwater fee and get its money back, while PWSA has asked the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission to confirm its stormwater rates are valid. Whatever comes out of these cases will shape how stormwater programs across the state, including ours, get paid for.
The Williamsport case: a fee, not a tax, for now
Williamsport transferred its stormwater system to the Williamsport Sanitary Authority, which shares a federal MS4 stormwater permit with the city and Loyalsock Township. That permit comes with real obligations under the Clean Water Act and Pennsylvania’s Clean Streams Law, and the authority set rates to pay for them: $10 a month for homes, and $10 a month for every 2,711 square feet of roofs, parking lots and other hard surfaces on non-residential property. Undeveloped land pays nothing.
A group of city property owners sued, arguing that West Chester made any charge based on impervious surface a tax. The Lycoming County court was openly skeptical that hard surface alone measures the value of the service a property receives. But it pointed to a specific line in the Municipality Authorities Act that lets stormwater authorities set reasonable and uniform rates based in whole or in part on property characteristics. On that basis, the court sided with the authority and dismissed the case. The property owners appealed to Commonwealth Court in August, and no briefing schedule had been set as of mid October.
“There may be properties, for example, that impose significant burdens on the stormwater system while deriving no substantial benefit from that system (e.g., a property with extensive impervious coverage that is located on the top of a hill.)”
Pennsylvania Supreme Court, Borough of West Chester decision, as quoted by the Lycoming County court
The Pittsburgh case: a school district, a water authority and the PUC
Closer to home, the School District of Pittsburgh filed suit in Allegheny County in July, arguing that PWSA’s stormwater fee, which is also based on hard surfaces, is an illegal tax under West Chester. The district wants a ruling that PWSA has no authority to charge the fee and a refund of everything it has paid.
PWSA’s answer is that the dispute belongs before the Public Utility Commission, which has regulated the authority since 2017, and argument on that point was scheduled in county court for October 14. In June, PWSA asked the PUC to declare its stormwater tariff valid. The PUC has its own doubts. It ordered PWSA to show why the petition should not be dismissed, asking whether it would have to interpret the Municipality Authorities Act, whether a ruling would affect the many authorities the PUC does not regulate, and whether Commonwealth Court is the better venue. The state’s Office of Consumer Advocate has sided with PWSA, arguing that a PUC regulated utility is in a different position than the borough in West Chester. The school district has asked to intervene and wants the PUC petition dismissed or paused.
The PUC’s deadline for responses to PWSA’s legal memo on whether the commission should hear the stormwater fee question at all.
Why it matters for the rest of us
Stormwater fees pay for the unglamorous work that keeps basements dry and creeks cleaner: culvert replacements, green infrastructure, and the pollution reduction plans that MS4 permits require. Many communities in the Upper Ohio basin lean on authorities to do that work, and after a summer of flash flooding from the Mon Valley to the Ohio, the need is not going anywhere. Add last month’s federal executive order encouraging states and localities to repeal stormwater fees, and the funding question is getting louder from more than one direction.
Commonwealth Court’s eventual ruling in the Williamsport appeal could set the rule statewide. If your community funds stormwater through an authority, this is a good time to ask your board how it calculates the fee, what the money has built, and how it would plan if the courts change the rules. Nobody enjoys a new line on the water bill, but nobody enjoys a flooded basement either.
This article is based on a memorandum by Steven A. Hann, Esquire, solicitor for the Pennsylvania Municipal Authorities Association, dated October 15, 2026, and is offered for information only, not legal advice. Current as of October 18, 2026.
