Tesson Ferry Republican Club members recently heard two different perspectives on the Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District’s $945 million bond issue that city and county voters will consider Tuesday, June 5.

MSD rates will increase nearly 127 percent by July 1, 2015, if the bond issue, Proposition Y, is not approved by voters.

The bond issue, which would provide funding to address sewer overflow issues across the district’s service area, will ease that increase, making it a 52-percent increase by July 1, 2015, according to MSD Manager of Public Information Lance LeComb.

LeComb and Tom Sullivan, a longtime MSD critic, addressed club members May 10 during a meeting at Sen. Jim Lembke’s headquarters on South Lindbergh Boulevard.

LeComb emphasized he was not present to advocate passage of Prop Y, only to provide information about the bond issue.

Sullivan told club members, “… I’m not really working against Proposition Y, but I’m trying to give a different perspective — certainly different than the one that Lance gives …”

LeComb provided background about how the bond issue came to be placed on the ballot, noting the district operates the fourth-largest sewer system in the United States.

“… Throughout our sewer district, there are a series of what are called sewer overflows, and these overflows act as relief valves so when moderate to heavy rainstorms come along, too much water gets into the sewer system,” he said. “And instead of having thousands of basement backups, these relief valves relieve sewage into area rivers and streams — and even with them, we still do have some basement backups.

“But the sewer overflows are really an artifact of the way our system was first built, starting in the 1850s … Over the last 20 or so years, MSD has spent over $2.5 billion to eliminate about 350 of them. Today, we have about 350 remaining,” LeComb said.

Those sewer overflows resulted in the district being sued in June 2007 by the federal government on behalf of the Environmental Protection Agency and the state of Missouri on behalf of the Department of Natural Resources. The Missouri Coalition for the Environment Foundation later intervened under the citizen suit provisions of the federal Clean Water Act.

In the 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.

Under a settlement announced last August and formally approved April 27, the MSD will pay an estimated $4.7 billion over 23 years to eliminate illegal overflows of untreated raw sewage, including basement backups, to reduce pollution levels in urban rivers and streams.

Of the $4.7 billion, LeComb said, “… The cost for it is going to be something that’s predominately paid by our ratepayers. We’re not going to have federal money, we’re not going to have state money — at least for the most part. And this is going to cause rates to increase. About eight, nine years ago, we started a series of rate increases. The average single-family residential bill was about $13, $14 per month. Today, that average single-family residential bill stands about $28.73 per month, and we charge our bills based on your water usage.

“Over the last eight, nine years, we have used $775 million of bonds to help keep the rate of those increases down. Without the bonds, the rates would have been much higher …”

Regarding Prop Y, LeComb said, “If that bond issue passes, rates will increase 52 percent over the next four years. If that bond issue doesn’t pass, rates will increase 127 percent over the next four years. It’s certainly a steep cost. When you look at average sewer bills across the country, though, MSD has remained very average.

“Right now in Atlanta, I’ll give you an example, they’re paying over a hundred dollars per month, in addition to some other sales taxes and other costs as well. Our bills have remained very average over the last eight, nine, 10 years. Even with these increases, we project them to remain very average.

“But I’m here this evening just to really talk to you about what a ‘yes’ vote means and what a ‘no’ vote means. A ‘yes’ vote means a 52-percent increase. A ‘no’ vote means a 127-percent increase,” he added.

Sullivan said his problem with the bond issue is the amount of money and what he contends is the MSD’s lack of accountability.

“… The first thing to understand about this is that the situation at MSD was caused entirely by them …,” he said.

Noting the Clean Water Act was amended in 1972, Sullivan asked, “Well, what have they been doing for the past 40 years? And the answer is they’ve been duncing around. I was at an MSD board meeting some years back and one of the board members brought in an article from one of the news magazines and he says, ‘This shows you the work we’re going to have to be doing.’ And it had to do with the Clean Water Act in various cities …”

He contended federal dollars would have been available to assist the district to begin work on complying with the amended Clean Water Act if it had begun addressing the issue in the early 1970s.

During an era of explosive population growth, Sullivan said the MSD Board of Trustees contributed to the problem by permitting the development of new homes without increasing sewer capacity.

The reason for that, he said, is, “… MSD hasn’t been just influenced by developers, they’ve actually had developers on the board … Huge conflicts of interest, of course, but again, it created a situation not only with sewage but stormwater (of) basically, ‘We’ll deal with it later.’ Well, that later has finally come.”

The current situation, Sullivan said, could have been avoided “had MSD gotten on the ball early, had MSD been more accountable to the ratepayers. And that’s the problem over and over again. This is a sewer district that’s not accountable to anyone … The Hancock Amendment, as you know, was passed in 1980. MSD did everything they could possibly do to weasel out of it. They spent years and years and millions of dollars (and) finally in the late ’90s they were able to say that their wastewater rates are no longer subject to the Hancock Amendment.”

Regarding Prop Y, he said, “… While I’m really not opposed to it or saying that you shouldn’t vote for it because it is an issue, the point is, is that it is MSD’s negligence, it is MSD’s incompetence that has put this area into this particular situation.”