EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. (CN) — Walter Byrd is tired of his town's crap. Literally.
The longtime resident of Cahokia Heights, Illinois, formerly known as Centreville, has been dealing with storm water and raw sewage flooding his home for years - and he's had enough of it.
"Raw sewage's been coming up in my front yard... my house... you wake up in the morning and you're walking through raw sewage," Byrd said.
It's this type of unsanitary situation that pushed Byrd, along with two dozen other Cahokia Heights residents, to file suit against the city of Cahokia Heights and the Commonfields of Cahokia Heights Public Water District in East. St. Louis federal court on Tuesday.
Organized into a community activist league called the Centreville Citizens for Change, and supported by a team of sympathetic lawyers, the mostly Black and low-income plaintiffs hope that the suit will finally put an end to more than 40 years of unsanitary conditions and public neglect.
"It is horrendously inhumane... none of us should have to live like this," longtime resident Yvette Lyles said.
On paper, Cahokia Heights is a town in its infancy. It was officially founded just two months ago. But it was created by the merger of the much older communities of Cahokia, Alorton and Centerville. Situated on the banks of the Mississippi River opposite St. Louis, it is one of the poorest cities in the country. Close to 50% of its residents live below the poverty level. It is also a majority-Black community – only 4% of residents do not identify as Black.
Perhaps this why, since the 1980s, the communities that formed Cahokia Heights have struggled along with woefully inadequate sewage systems. Storm water saturated with human feces regularly floods residents' homes, damaging foundations and endangering health.
Some locals hoped that the consolidation of the towns would bring improvements, but Byrd said little has changed.
“I’ve been out here for 28 years. This change from Centreville to Cahokia Heights hasn’t done anything... They haven’t changed anything,” he said at a press conference on Tuesday.
Lester Goree, another longtime Centreville resident, said he was tired of paying water and sewage bills to a public water district that has failed to keep sewage out of his water.
“When I first moved back here 12 years ago, I first received a bill from Commonfields of Cahokia,” Goree said. “I was told that Commonfields was responsible for maintaining the sewage pipes, but sewage was coming out of the ground and into our homes. Why was I paying a bill for sewage pipes when Commonfields was not and continues to not maintain their system?”
The lawsuit filed Tuesday is attempt to force the city and water district into action. In addition to accusing the city and the public water district of violating the Clean Water Act - which prohibits the discharge of pollutants into rivers and lakes - it also claims that they are responsible for creating a public nuisance and negligently trespassing on the plaintiffs' respective properties.
To relieve these issues, the suit seeks a ruling that Cahokia Heights and Commonfields must take action within 30 days to begin fixing their dilapidated sewage systems, stop diverting floodwaters into the plaintiffs' properties and public roads, and pay for damages the plaintiffs' homes have suffered in the floods.
The residents also ask that Cahokia Heights and Commonfields be forced to pay daily civil penalties should they fail to meet these conditions.
"“The combination of mismanaged stormwater infrastructure and broken sewage systems further compounds the destruction wrought by each alone. Floodwaters become a vehicle for spreading overflowing sewage and odors throughout yards and inside homes,” the lawsuit states. “The broken sewage system infrastructure also allows the excessive stormwater to enter the sewage systems, which adds pressure to the systems and leads to more sewage overflows. These connected failures have created a vicious cycle of pollution and flooding that endangers individual plaintiffs and members of Centreville Citizens for Change, contaminates waters, and leaves destroyed property in its wake.”
This is not the first time residents have taken legal action against area officials. A prior suit filed in 2020 pushed Centreville to clear a local canal of sewage, one that hadn't been properly emptied since the 1990s.
Nicole Nelson of Equity Legal Services in Belleville, Illinois, one of the attorneys who filed both the 2020 and 2021 lawsuits, said that legal action is the only thing capable of pushing the city and water district into addressing the issue. Despite Cahokia Heights' high poverty levels, she said it wasn't a lack of money that prevented the city from taking action - only a lack of political will.
"It's something that could be dealt with, but the administration just chose not to... Nothing would have prevented them from addressing this issue," Nelson said in a phone interview Tuesday.
City officials could not be reached for comment.
Nelson and lawyers from the environmental activist group Earthjustice said they hoped the suit would force the city to do what is best for local residents.
“Commonfields has continually failed to address the flow of raw sewage that constantly floods Centreville’s streets, yards and homes, and flows into our waterways,” Earthjustice attorney Debbie Chizewer said in a statement regarding the suit. “We will fight until the flow of raw sewage stops.”
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