To the Editor:

The recent advertisement in the Call by the Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District, in the form of a letter to ratepayers from MSD Chairman Harold Crumpton and Vice Chairman Charles Karam, claimed things were going great at the sewer district.

It all sounded good. Too bad it wasn’t believable.

MSD is really the same inept and incompetent sewer district it has always been. Millions of dollars — sometimes tens of millions of dollars — are regularly wasted while a great many sewer problems are ignored. Consider the following:

• The new MSD treatment plant under construction in Oakville has been out of control for some time. It was originally estimated to cost around $50 million, but has now gone to $230 million and could go even higher.

• Last July, the MSD board set a record for the most no-bid consulting contracts approved at one board meeting — an incredible $48.1 million. Only $8.7 million was approved for sewer improvements.

• The district has spent over $10 million on its plush new office building in downtown St. Louis and is planning to spend even more.

• There are now 10 law firms, many politically connected, that have contracts with MSD. This despite the district having its own law department.

The basic problem at MSD is that Mayor Francis Slay and County Executive Charlie Dooley have appointed awful people to the MSD board. The trustees rubber stamp everything without having a clue to what’s going on. Until there are better board members, MSD will only continue to get worse.

Tom Sullivan

St. Louis