The US Department of Justice and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that a settlement has been reached between the United States, the Missouri Coalition for the Environment Foundation and the Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District (MSD), requiring MSD to install a variety of pollution controls.

The controls, estimated at a cost of $US4.7 billion over 23 years, will contribute to the reduction of almost 13 billion gallons per year of overflows into nearby streams and rivers, and includes the construction of three large storage tunnels ranging from approximately two to nine miles in length, and to expand capacity at two treatment plants.

MSD will also be required to develop and implement a comprehensive plan to eliminate more than 200 illegal discharge points within its sanitary sewer system.

Finally, the district will engage in comprehensive and proactive cleaning, maintenance and emergency response programs to improve sewer system performance and to eliminate overflows from its sewer systems, including basement backups, releases into buildings and onto property.

Article continues below…

EPA Regional Administrator Karl Brooks said the agreement would bring jobs and long-term economic investments while significantly improving the environment for future generations.

MSD has also committed to spending $US230 million in a mitigation program to alleviate flooding and another $US30 million in an enhanced pipe lining program, both of which are focused exclusively in environmental justice areas were low-income or minority communities have suffered a disproportionate burden from air, water or land pollution.

In addition to improving its sewer system and treatment plants, MSD will spend $US1.6 million on a supplemental environmental project to implement a voluntary sewer connection and septic tank closure program for low-income eligible residential property owners who elect to close their septic tanks and connect to the public sewer.

The settlement will also advance the use of large-scale green infrastructure projects to control wet weather sewer overflows by requiring MSD to invest at least $US100 million in an innovative green infrastructure program, focused in environmental justice communities in St. Louis.

MSD’s sewer system collects and treats domestic, commercial and industrial wastewater from a population of approximately 1.4 million in the city of St. Louis and almost all of St. Louis County. The system covers more than 525 square miles, and includes seven wastewater treatment plants, 294 pumping stations and more than 9,630 miles of sewer lines, making it the fourth largest sewer system in the United States.

The settlement resolves the claims brought by the United States in a lawsuit filed in June 2007 which the Missouri Coalition for the Environment Foundation later intervened under the citizen suit provisions of the federal Clean Water Act. In that lawsuit, among other things, the United States alleged that on at least 7,000 occasions between 2001 and 2005, failures in MSD’s sewer system resulted in overflows of raw sewage into residential homes, yards, public parks, streets and playground areas.