Friends of Milwaukee’s Rivers and the Alliance for the Great Lakes v. Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District

Background: The Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District (“MMSD”), a state-chartered government agency which provides wastewater treatment services to 28 municipalities in southeast Wisconsin, has a long history of dumping raw sewage into Lake Michigan and the Milwaukee, Menominee and Kinnickinnic Rivers. In 1994, MMSD brought on a 19-mile long “Deep Tunnel” for storage of sewage during rainstorms when it was expected that treatment plants would be overwhelmed. The “Deep Tunnel” was intended to eliminate sanitary sewer overflows (“SSOs”).

Despite MMSD’s expenditure of nearly $2 billion on the “Deep Tunnel”, the dumping of sewage has continued without abatement. Since 1994, SSOs from MMSD sewers have resulted in more than 1 billion gallons of sewage discharged into Milwaukee-area rivers and Lake Michigan.

The Clean Water Act strictly prohibits SSOs. Notwithstanding the decades of MMSD violations, neither the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (“DNR”) nor the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) took action against MMSD.

Fed up by the continuing SSOs and the lack of government enforcement, Friends of Milwaukee Rivers (“FMR”) and the Alliance for the Great Lakes (“Alliance”) (then known as the Lake Michigan Federation) (“Plaintiffs”), represented by Attorney Karen M. Schapiro (now MEA Executive Director), filed a notice of intent to sue under the Clean Water Act in July 2001. Thereafter, on March 15, 2002, the groups filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin. The suit seeks the cessation of SSOs and compliance with the Clean Water Act.

Shortly after Plaintiffs filed its suit, the DNR and MMSD entered into a “sweetheart” deal which would supposedly bring MMSD into compliance with the law. In light of the “settlement” between the MMSD and DNR, the Court dismissed FMR and Alliance’s Complaint in September 2003. The Plaintiffs appealed the dismissal to the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

In September 2004, the Court of Appeals reversed the District Court’s ruling, directing that the matter be remanded to the District Court for determination of whether an agreement reached by the State and MMSD in the State’s case would indeed result in compliance with the Clean Water Act. Read the decision here.

In August 2005, the matter was heard before the U.S. District Court. The Plaintiffs presented testimony that MMSD will continue to violate the Clean Water Act, even if the planned improvements of the agreement entered in to by MMSD and the State were achieved.

Status: UPDATE! On December 14, 2007, Judge Clevert of the U.S. District Court handed down his decision to dismiss the case, on the grounds that the matter had already been decided by the “settlement” between the DNR and MMSD. Our clients, FMR and Alliance, have decided to appeal the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit. MEA does not agree with the U.S. District Court’s interpretation of the Clean Water Act and seeks a decision that enforces the Act in its intent to protect our water resources.

Meanwhile, MMSD continues to violate SSO requirements, dumping more then 500 million gallons of sanitary sewage since 2002. In late 2006, FMR and the Alliance filed another notice of intent to sue, filing a second lawsuit in January 2007.

Resources

FMR and Alliance v. MMSD Circuit Court Opinion

Judgmentand Opinion from US District Court, Seventh Circuit, December 14, 2007

Environmental Groups Push for an End to Illegal Sanitary Sewer Overflows
Press Release
January 11, 2007