It was with no small amount of disbelief that I read the letter from Lance LeComb, the public relations director for the Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District, in the Feb. 28 Call. Almost none of it was believable; he just made it up as he went along.
In particular, LeComb whines on at length about the lawsuit filed against MSD by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Missouri Department of Natural Resources. Among other things, the sewer district is accused of allowing hundreds of millions of gallons of raw sewage to overflow into area rivers, creeks and streams.
According to the lawsuit, this can cause diseases ranging from mild gastroenteritis — stomach cramps and diarrhea — to cholera, dysentery, infectious hepatitis and severe gastroenteritis. It puts children, senior citizens and pregnant women most at risk.
It isn’t surprising that the lawsuit was filed, only that it wasn’t done sooner. The Clean Water Act was passed in 1972 and the sewer district has never been in compliance. The MSD “public servants” — as LeComb refers to them — have actually been polluting area rivers and streams for decades.
It was first learned in 1986 how badly MSD was damaging the environment. A front-page story in the Post-Dispatch was headlined “Raw Sewage in Creeks ‘Intolerable.'” It began: “Raw sewage is spilling into creeks and streams that flow past homes and subdivisions throughout much of St. Louis County.”
It was also learned that MSD had been dumping 100 million gallons of raw sew-age into the Mississippi River on a third of the days each year.
Making it even worse, local sewage is among the most toxic in the country. This has all made St. Louis one of the biggest polluters on earth — due to the incompetence and irresponsibility of MSD.
LeComb claims the lawsuit was filed “against our community.” It was not. It was filed against MSD. The lawsuit is styled, “UNITED STATES OF AMERICA and THE STATE OF MISSOURI, Plaintiffs, v. THE METROPOLITAN ST. LOUIS SEW-ER DISTRICT, Defendant.” It makes the “public servants” at MSD sound more like what they are — public enemies.
Tom Sullivan
University City
