The stormwater permit that expired in 2023
The stormwater permit that expired in 2023
2026-09-15 · Pennsylvania · Regulation · Pending — not yet law
What is happening. Pennsylvania's general permit for municipal separate storm sewer systems — PAG-13 — expired on 15 March 2023. Three and a half years later the replacement has still not been issued, and the Department of Environmental Protection has now said it will not arrive this year either. This is pending: the draft exists, the final does not.1
The draft, and its timetable
DEP published the draft replacement permit on 18 January 2025 at 55 Pa.B. 601. The notice explained that "PAG-13 is intended to provide NPDES permit coverage to small municipal separate storm sewer systems (MS4) for stormwater discharges to surface waters," and invited written comments "through Wednesday, March 19, 2025" — a period now long closed.2
The central substantive change is a shift in what the permit measures. DEP proposed to focus the draft on "the reduction or management of runoff volume, rather than directly on pollutant loads." New requirements include a Maximum Extent Practicable calculator spreadsheet submitted with the notice of intent, and a Volume Management Plan due by 30 September 2028. The notice anticipated the final permit "will become effective on October 1, 2026."
The update that removes that date
DEP's municipal stormwater page states, verbatim: "DEP is not planning to publish the final PAG-13 General Permit during 2026." The existing permit continues by administrative extension — "The availability of the current NPDES PAG-13 General Permit has been extended until the PAG-13 is reissued" — and the submission deadline is gone: "A revised NOI submission deadline will be announced when the final PAG-13 is published."1
One consequence has immediate bite for anyone new: during the extension, "the Department may not authorize new coverage under PAG-13."
What running on an expired permit actually means
Not that the obligations lapse. An administratively extended permit continues in force on its existing terms, and the municipalities covered by it remain bound by the 2018 permit's requirements — the six minimum control measures, the pollutant reduction planning, the annual reporting, the $500 annual instalment due each 30 September.
What it means is that the programme is frozen at a 2018 specification while the pressure that produced the rewrite continues to build. Municipalities are planning capital work, negotiating with property owners and setting stormwater charges against a permit that was supposed to have been replaced three years ago, and against a draft that may still change before it is final.
Why a permit it does not hold still reaches an association
Because the permit is held by the township, and the township meets its obligations using facilities that associations own.
The chain is short. A municipality must reduce pollutant loads, or under the draft manage runoff volume. Retrofitting an existing detention basin is the cheapest way to do that, and DEP's own guidance points municipalities toward exactly that option. In a Pennsylvania subdivision the existing basins belong to the homeowners association. The municipality may count them without any agreement with the association, but the facility must then be shown to be functioning as designed and maintained to its operation and maintenance plan, and the municipality must inspect it.
So the shape of the final PAG-13 determines what townships will need from association-owned basins over the next decade. The volume-management orientation matters here: a requirement framed around runoff volume rather than pollutant load points toward physical modification of basins — infiltration, storage, outlet reconfiguration — rather than toward monitoring. Physical modification is a capital cost, and on an association-owned facility it is a capital cost with no obvious payer.
The planning problem this creates
Boards are being asked to fund reserves without knowing what the facility will be required to do. A reserve study completed today for a stormwater basin can only price the existing structure's maintenance and eventual component replacement. It cannot price a retrofit under requirements that do not yet exist.
That is an argument for two things rather than for waiting. First, establishing the baseline now — what the association owns, what the operation and maintenance plan requires, what condition the facility is actually in. An association that has done that will be able to respond when the permit lands; one that has not will be starting from the survey. Second, opening the conversation with the township before the permit is final, while there is still something to negotiate about, rather than after the township has an obligation and a deadline.
The dates that matter
The 30 September 2028 Volume Management Plan deadline is in the draft, not in a final permit, and the draft's own effective date of 1 October 2026 has already been overtaken. Treat 2028 as indicative rather than fixed. The one date that is currently operative is the annual one: a municipality's stormwater reporting year runs 1 July to 30 June with reports due 30 September, which is the point in the calendar at which townships look hardest at the facilities they are counting.
What to watch next
Publication of the final PAG-13, which DEP has now said will not happen in 2026. When it comes, the questions for associations are whether the volume-management orientation survives into the final text, what the Maximum Extent Practicable calculator requires municipalities to demonstrate about individual facilities, and whether the final permit says anything at all about agreements between permittees and the private owners whose land they are relying on. The draft, like the guidance, does not require one.
In the meantime the bar on authorising new coverage is worth noting for any community in a municipality that is newly designated as an MS4 — that municipality cannot currently obtain permit coverage, which is an odd position for everyone concerned.
Related Pennsylvania HOA Topics
Stay on top of Pennsylvania HOA law
Every week: new Pennsylvania legislation, court rulings, and regulatory developments affecting condos, planned communities, and property managers. Free.
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.