Like gamblers at a dice table, MSD's Board of Trustees placed a very big bet on Dec. 13, 2007. That was the day the board voted to change how the agency raises money to build and maintain storm sewers.

Before that vote, MSD charged a flat fee of 24 cents per month for each customer. But that brought in just $1.2 million in 2007 - far less than what was needed.

The new funding formula was based on how water runs off impermeable surfaces of property. It drastically increased available revenue. That's good, because erosion caused by water runoff has become an issue in many newly developed parts of St. Louis County.

What's more, state officials are under increasing federal pressure to improve water quality in the state's streams and rivers. That's an expensive job involving the separation of storm and sanitary sewers.

But last week, the trustees' big gamble came up snake eyes. A state judge ruled that MSD's new system of raising money was a tax increase, not a fee increase. As such, it violates the Hancock Amendment to the state constitution, which requires voter approval of tax increases.

The case that resulted in Judge Dan Dildine's ruling last week is continuing. MSD could be required to refund money it collected from property owners in St. Louis and St. Louis County.

The ruling will have no impact on the rates paid by homeowners for sanitary sewer service because those rates are set separately and already have been upheld in court, an MSD spokesman said.

But Mr. Dildine's decision leaves the sewer district with three options, none of them attractive.

• It can appeal the judge's ruling, though there seems to be little evidence and even less hope that it would be overturned.

• It can go the voters it purposely sidestepped in 2007 and ask them to approve a tax increase. That probably would be messy and slow.

• It can reinstate the flat fee of 24 cents per month. That means revenue will drop drastically and an ambitious $6 billion, 10-year project to separate storm and sanitary sewers would have to be abandoned.

Unfortunately, doing nothing isn't an option. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been pressuring the St. Louis region to clean up waterways, including the Mississippi and Missouri rivers and the River Des Peres.

In May, the EPA settled a Clean Water Act suit it had filed against Kansas City. The settlement requires that Kansas City spend $2.5 billion over 10 years to separate its storm and sanitary sewer systems. The same issues plague St. Louis.

The federal Clean Water Act isn't new; it was passed in 1972. But the St. Louis region never has been in full compliance with its provisions.

William Zweig of Chesterfield, who filed the suit that resulted in Mr. Dildine's ruling, said last week that his suit "wasn't about the money." Rather, he said, it was about the state constitution.

Unfortunately, the ruling raises another issue: Absent a federal lawsuit, how is any public good accomplished - be it public education, safe roads or clean water - in a state whose residents are unwilling to tax themselves to achieve it?