CAHOKIA HEIGHTS – Water circled the home of Olivia Dunn on 80th Street more quickly than litigation seeking to control the water in the city has progressed, resulting in response from multiple agencies.
Dunn said she lacked necessary medical supplies as of Jan. 3, because delivery drivers wouldn’t wade through the remains of a downpour.
Belleville lawyer Nicole Nelson circulated a message of distress that night, stating city officials hadn’t yet responded to the problem.
The next day, so many people arrived that 80th Street looked like a parking lot.
A city worker started the relief effort by pounding a spade down below the west edge of the street across from Dunn’s home.
He cleared a drain and water gushed into a ditch.
He and another worker dragged a long piece of dead wood from adjacent property to another opening and used it as a ramrod.
As they worked, Dunn said, “I’ve been having a hard time.”
“I want to be able to get out of this house,” she said.
She said her daughter had to drive from the side of the house and through the water to put packages on a truck.
Such primitive conditions and solutions continue while lawsuits from 2020 and 2021 remain pending at U. S. district court.
Nelson filed the first one in association with Kalila Jackson of St. Louis on behalf of Cornelius Bennett and Earlie Fuse.
They claimed the City of Centreville, Centreville township, and Commonfields of Cahokia failed to provide and maintain storm water and wastewater systems.
They alleged violation of prohibitions in state and national constitutions against condemnation of private property without just compensation.
They asked for an injunction and Senior District Judge Phil Gilbert denied it.
He found it might have been appropriate to prevent government action without condemnation but that wasn’t the situation in this case.
He found plaintiffs didn’t want the government to take their properties by eminent domain but just wanted it to stop the flooding of their homes.
In 2021 Debbie Musiker of Chicago filed a complaint under the national Clean Water Act in association with Nelson and Jackson.
Musiker represented a group calling itself Centreville Citizens for Change, while Nelson and Jackson represented 31 individual plaintiffs.
They named Cahokia Heights and Commonfields as defendants.
They claimed raw sewage pooled in yards, bubbled out of manholes, ran down ditches, and backed up into toilets and sinks.
They claimed sewage flowed into tributaries of the Mississippi River.
They also claimed that deteriorating pipes allowed storm water and groundwater to enter sewage systems and that sewage pumps were broken.
The plaintiffs asked for immediate action to prevent threats to public health and the environment under supervision of an independent monitor.
They asked for damages including diminution of property value, remediation, and interference with use and enjoyment of properties.
By then Cahokia, the City of Centreville, and the Village of Alorton had merged into the City of Cahokia Heights.
Commonfields had transferred its assets to Cahokia Heights and dissolved.
Plaintiffs amended the complaint last year, adding Metro East Sanitary District as a defendant and keeping Commonfields in the case.
Commonfields moved to dismiss the complaint on the grounds that it didn’t exist.
Cahokia Heights and the sanitary district moved to strike the complaint on the grounds that it ran too long and included irrelevant details.
District Judge David Dugan denied the motion to strike in November, finding the claims intelligible and precise enough.
“Some claims, like the ones here, require more complex pleading due to the legal theories involved and the multiple parties and claims presented,” he wrote.
He denied the motion to dismiss Commonfields and asked for separate briefs on questions involving its capacity to sue or be sued.
On Dec. 26, Cahokia Heights counsel Gregg Kinney of Edwardsville answered the complaint by asserting immunity as a local unit of government.
He asserted preemption of the claims by state and federal laws and by actions that state agencies took or intended to take.
Kinney claimed unforeseeable, independent, intervening, or superseding events caused any damage.
He claimed plaintiffs voluntarily exposed themselves to dangers and risks.
Colter Kennedy of Edwardsville answered for Commonfields, arguing that issues in the complaint were already subject to orders of state and federal agencies.
He claimed Commonfields didn’t discharge pollutants, especially not into navigable waters or waters of the United States.
“Commonfields asserts that the relief sought by plaintiffs is wholly disproportionate to the alleged noncomopliance,” he wrote.
James Godfrey of St. Louis answered for the sanitary district on Dec. 27, offering alternative and hypothetical defenses.
He claimed any damage resulted from negligence and acts or omissions of other defendants or of entities that might not be parties.
Godfrey claimed the conduct of plaintiffs proximately caused any injuries or damage.
He asserted local government immunity and state and federal preemption.
All three defendants attributed any damage to an act of God.
Dugan now presides over both cases.
Gilbert transferred the original suit to him on Dec. 8, after conducting a settlement conference that didn’t result in settlement.
Dugan set a status conference Jan. 11.