CLAYTON, Mo. (AP) – St. Louis County’s population isn’t quite 1 million, and that is having ramifications on the company that provides water to the region.

U.S. Census figures from 2010 show the county’s population at 998,954. An appeals court panel in Kansas City recently ruled that since the population isn’t 1 million, Missouri-American Water Co. cannot collect an infrastructure surcharge from county customers.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that the statute allowing public utilities to pass along the costs applies only with counties of more than 1 million residents.

Other Missouri laws have similar stipulations. St. Louis County had been above the threshold for decades and now that it isn’t, the validity of some statutes is being challenged.