Baltimore Won't Get A Regional Water Authority, But Maybe Something Close

By Christine Condon, Maryland Matters

January 9, 2026

Baltimore area officials still want to create some kind of regional body to oversee the area’s water system — just don’t call it a regional water authority.

During the introductory meeting Wednesday of a new work group discussing the matter, Baltimore Comptroller Bill Henry (D), the work group’s chairman, said that a regional water authority is officially off the table.

“That path has since proved prohibitive from several financial and legal perspectives,” Henry said. “Instead, our focus here over the course of the next year will be much more practical, and — hopefully — more achievable.”

During a previous task force convened to discuss the water system — which is largely owned by Baltimore City but serves Baltimore County and other neighboring jurisdictions — officials looked closely at a water authority.

But they discovered several problems that would arise from creating a new, regional entity to handle day-to-day operations for the system, as opposed to Baltimore’s Department of Public Works, which largely runs the system today.

For one thing, the existing debt incurred by the city to run the system would have to be transferred to that new entity, and because much of that debt was incurred when interest rates were substantially lower, doing so would come at an immense cost.

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Creating a new entity would also impact employees, who would essentially transfer to a new employer, even if their jobs remained the same. And it would force pension obligations to be relocated as well.

So, Henry says he envisions a new governance structure whereby the city agency would still handle the operations of the system, but it would ultimately answer to a board of officials from around the region, instead of simply Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott (D).

“Right now, DPW just works for the mayor of Baltimore, right? And the director of DPW does what the mayor says,” Henry said in an interview. “What is on the table to change is: The director would do what this regional entity says they should do.”

It remains to be seen precisely what form the new body could take. The new work group is specifically tasked with evaluating whether a “Rate Board,” tasked only with setting utility bills for water, sewer and stormwater, would be a good fit for the region. Currently, much of that power sits with Baltimore’s Board of Estimates.

There is also likely to be significant political grappling over how such a board might be composed, and how many representatives would come from the city, versus the surrounding counties or other entities.

Per a recently released schedule, the new work group plans to release its final report by the end of this year.

The 13-member Baltimore Regional Water Governance Model Work Group is the second cohort to consider Baltimore’s water system over the past several years. Under a 2024 state law, Scott selects five of the 13 members, with three appointed by the Baltimore County executive, two by the governor, one each by the Maryland Senate president and House speaker, and one from Anne Arundel, Carroll, Harford or Howard counties.

The work group’s decision could cap years of tension between city and county about the control of the water system. Infrastructure woes and billing issues have stirred the pot in recent years, but demographic change also lies at the heart of the matter.

The system was constructed by a far larger Baltimore City, which agreed to expand it outward to service Baltimore County as that jurisdiction grew, and to serve other counties, though to a lesser extent. Today, the size of the county far surpasses that of the city, but the city maintains much of the control.

Environmental and ratepayer advocacy groups have previously expressed concern that, even though the city and counties have cost-sharing agreements, city residents bear too much of the cost, and expressed worry that a regional water authority could seize assets from the city, leaving it worse off financially.

So Jorge Aguilar, southern region director at Food and Water Watch, said he was heartened to learn Wednesday that a regional water authority wasn’t in the cards for Baltimore.

“Based on those findings for the first task force on this issue, it was estimated that the creation of the new authority could result in more than $2 billion in transaction costs and could lead to large water bill hikes, water shut offs, privatization, loss of potential unionized positions within the city and within the county government. So again, really glad that is off the table,” Aguilar said.

“We really do hope that the outcome of your deliberations will be to ensure more equity in the cost allocations between the city and the county, while protecting and expanding local control, union jobs and water affordability,” Aguilar said.