Resolution for MSD Negotiations Fail in Florissant City Council

A resolution that hoped to reopen negotiations and work with the St. Louis Metropolitan Sewer District (MSD) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regarding its planned rate hike died in Florissant City Council Monday.

Councilors as well as the mayor sat torn about whether to approve the resolution until hearing further information from MSD spokesman Lance LeComb.

The St. Louis County Municipal League sent a letter to its members urging them to pass a resolution that would aid in postponing the consent decree. In turn, the league as well as municipalities would work with MSD and the EPA to streamline the rate increase as well as improve the quality of the water system along with river improvements.

LeComb told the Council that passing this resolution would send a mixed message to the credit rating agencies.

“We have negotiated what we feel is a very good deal,” he said.

LeComb said that he understood the sentiment and points made by the league, but that less would be spent than originally thought—$4.7 billion compared to more than $6 billion throughout the next couple of decades—with 60 percent of the funding going to the St. Louis County area.

Furthermore, LeComb said that the consent decree would not be reopened as it’s legally bound not to be.

The resolution stems from the results of a lawsuit by the EPA and Missouri Coalition for the Environment against MSD. The lawsuit alleged that MSD violated the Clean Water Act by discharging raw sewage into rivers and streams, according to an article by St. Louis Public Radio.

Therefore, all parties negotiated the consent decree that will result in $4 billion spent throughout more than two decades.

"Certainly we’re going to be spending billions of dollars, and that’s not a trivial amount of money,” LeComb said in the article. “And there are going to be some folks out there who have to make some very hard choices and we realize that and we’re going to work with those folks. But this is an investment that needs to take place to protect our environment, to protect the health and safety of our community, to maintain our infrastructure so we have a sound economy."