EAST ST. LOUIS - Centreville Citizens for Change claim that opportunities to comment on sewer improvements in Cahokia Heights can’t substitute for intervention in judicial approval of a consent decree.
Cahokia Heights opposed the group’s intervention on Feb. 4 and the group’s counsel Mary Rock of Chicago replied on Feb. 11.
“The city embellishes the purportedly enhanced opportunities for Centreville Citizens for Change to comment on the proposed consent decree," she wrote.
She quoted declarations of members that two meetings attended by national and state environmental agencies were “perfunctory and performative.”
She claimed counsel for the agencies declined to answer questions or engage in any way.
She claimed that despite counsel’s request the agencies declined to respond to comments.
“This hardly constitutes a legitimate alternative to intervention," she wrote.
Centreville Citizens for Change sued Cahokia Heights in 2021, seeking relief from overflows of sanitary sewers.
District Judge David Dugan received the assignment because he presided over a sewer suit from the previous year with parallel claims and the same counsel.
Last year Dugan stayed both actions pending execution of a decree.
The agencies lodged a decree in December in a civil complaint against Cahokia Heights.
It declared, “It is the city’s responsibility to determine how best to fund the work.”
Federal Register published the decree on Dec. 19, setting a Feb. 17 deadline for comment.
Rock moved to intervene on Jan. 21, claiming residents can’t wait decades for solutions.
She claimed sewage runs down roadside ditches and spreads into homes and yards.
She called it an indignity and a health hazard that members have borne too long.
She claimed interests of the agencies might conflict with interests of the group.