Allegheny Township approved a stormwater fee Tuesday as the deadline looms to meet state and federal mandates on runoff management.

The ordinance saddles homeowners with an $8.50 monthly payment to help fund about $1.6 million in improvements needed to make good on the township’s MS4 plan, short for Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System.

Nonresidential landholders will be charged proportional to the amount of area that blocks water from seeping into the ground.

Bills could go out as soon as next month.

Credits of up to 50% will be available to farms, properties with well-kept stormwater mitigation structures and entities willing to educate people on the importance of controlling runoff.

The township has until September 2026 to fulfill its MS4 plan or face a fine from the state Department of Environmental Protection based on how much money it would take to close that compliance gap.

If no work was done, the township would owe the state $1.6 million and still need to upgrade its stormwater infrastructure.

These upgrades, for instance, could take the form of catch basins, retention ponds and newly planted vegetation.

Supervisors Jamie Morabito and Jeff Pollick voted in favor of the measure at the 3 p.m. special meeting. Supervisor Mike Korns was not in attendance.

Korns said in a statement he opposed the measure and “was not consulted before this special meeting was scheduled.” A previous commitment kept him from attending, he said.

The statement included concerns with township engineering firm LSSE’s process for determining the rate paid by property owners, which he claimed used properties outside of Allegheny Township as reference.

Shawn Wingrove of LSSE said Korns is mistakenly referring to the owners’ addresses, not the properties themselves.

Korns also raised questions about whether the ordinance amounts to a tax, rather than a fee, and is therefore outside the township’s power.

“I have never said I would not support a stormwater fee,” he said. “In fact, if done properly, I would. However, I cannot support this stormwater fee.”

Morabito and Pollick took heat Tuesday for the timing of the afternoon meeting, which coincided with the primary election. The township building serves as a polling place.

“I disagree with this meeting altogether,” said former Supervisor Joe Ferguson, who has often found himself defending his record from his seat in the crowd. “You did it purposely just so people didn’t have a chance to talk.”

According to Morabito, the date and time were picked because it was the soonest supervisors — or at least he and Pollick — could get together to pass the ordinance.

The board would have voted on the ordinance at the regular meeting earlier this month, he said, but too much time had elapsed since it was introduced and, therefore, it needed to be readvertised.

Kathy Starr, another former supervisor who has sparred with the current board, expressed worry that businesses could suffer from the additional fee.

“We worked so hard to get them in here,” she said. “Now we’re going to more or less stab them in the back.”

Pollick said he was reluctant to pass the ordinance, but the prospect of a hefty fine required immediate action. The current board has dealt with a spate of penalties incurred between 2019 and 2023, including from the Internal Revenue Service and State Ethics Commission.

And the township would struggle to meet its MS4 mandate without additional revenue, he noted. It’s on track to deplete its reserves by 2027, and is up against the maximum real estate millage allowed in Westmoreland County without court intervention.

“I’m not in favor of it,” he said. “But we’re in a situation we can’t avoid anymore.”

TribLive reported in 2018 that officials were aware of the stormwater mandates. Starr acknowledged this, but denied claims from Morabito and Pollick that past boards had no plan or made no effort to meet runoff requirements.

The vision, she said, was to keep the 2-mill debt service in place once the township became debt free and instead allocate it toward MS4 work.

Copyright ©2025— Trib Total Media, LLC (TribLIVE.com)