Pittsburgh Water's 2025 rate case: what it asked for and what it settled

On June 4, 2025, Pittsburgh Water asked the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission for two years of rate increases, and the notice it filed with the request put a number on what that meant for a household. A typical residential customer using 3,000 gallons a month, paying $100.27, would pay $123.02 in 2026 and $135.49 in 2027. Eight and a half months later, the commission approved a settlement whose own bill table puts the same 3,000-gallon customer at $115.29, with no base-rate increase for 2027.

All three documents behind those figures are published here as one record, with hashes and archived copies.

The typical bill

	Monthly bill	Change from $100.27	Source
Before the case	$100.27		Filing notice, excerpt p. 2
Requested for 2026	$123.02	+$22.75 (22.7%)	Filing notice, excerpt p. 2
Requested for 2027	$135.49	+$35.22	Filing notice, excerpt p. 2
Settled for 2026	$115.29	+$15.02 (15.0%)	Settlement, Appendix F, p. 61
Settled for 2027	No base-rate increase		Settlement, p. 8

The filing notice describes its typical customer as using 3,000 gallons a month on a 5/8-inch meter, charged the base stormwater rate (excerpt pp. 2 and 4). The settlement’s Appendix F row is a 5/8-inch, 3,000-gallon residential account starting from the same $100.27 bill. Customers who use more water see larger changes: the same table puts a 7,000-gallon account at $235.45, up from $197.12.

Pittsburgh Water withdrew its request to set 2027 rates as part of the settlement (p. 8), but 2027 bills will still move. The PENNVEST charge, a separate line on the bill, continues to be updated after January 1, 2027, and on February 1, 2027 the rate structure changes, a change the settlement calls revenue-neutral and whose bill impact is due with the tariff filing for that date (pp. 8 to 9).

Announced: $25 million. In the settlement: $42.6 million.

The commission’s February 19, 2026 press release said Pittsburgh Water’s total annual operating revenues “will increase by approximately $25 million,” about 10.2% over present rates. Pittsburgh Water’s December 17, 2025 release described the settlement as a base rate revenue increase of $25 million. Neither release, nor the authority’s February 19, 2026 release after the vote, states the $17.6 million or a combined total.

The settlement petition does. Its footnote 4, on page 7, says the total base rate and DSIC revenue increase “will be $42.6 million,” made up of the $25.0 million settlement amount plus $17.6 million in PENNVEST surcharges. The PENNVEST charge is the line through which the authority recovers what it owes on loans from PENNVEST, the state’s water-infrastructure lender. The commission’s order repeats the $42.6 million total in its footnote 16 (p. 51), where it corrects another party’s figure of $43.6 million.

A third number sits in the same petition. Pittsburgh Water’s own statement in support of the settlement (p. 141) describes “the Settlement total increase of $43.5 million.” The order quotes that figure (p. 44) and does not reconcile it with the $42.6 million.

The commission’s release describes the original request as about $63.6 million for 2026 and $20.7 million for 2027, roughly $84.4 million over two years.

What this does not settle

These are modeled bills for a typical account, not anyone’s actual statement, and the filing notice’s figures exclude ALCOSAN’s charges for wastewater treatment, which Pittsburgh Water bills on ALCOSAN’s behalf. The commission approved the settlement with modifications: it changed the settlement’s PENNVEST tariff language, set notice and filing requirements for the 2027 rate-structure change, and corrected percentages in one of the settlement’s appendices. The $115.29 figure comes from the settlement’s table, which predates those modifications; Pittsburgh Water’s release after the order continued to cite the $15.02 increase. Whether the compliance tariffs filed in March 2026 change the typical bill is not shown in these documents.

Sources

• PUC press release, Feb. 19, 2026 (archived)
• Pittsburgh Water release on the settlement, Dec. 17, 2025 (archived)
• Pittsburgh Water release after approval, Feb. 19, 2026 (archived)
• PUC docket R-2025-3055010 (archived)