ST. LOUIS (CN) - The Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District will pay $4.7 billion to improve its facilities in the next 23 years as part of a federal settlement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
U.S. District Judge Carol E. Jackson approved the settlement of the case filed by the EPA in 2007.
The EPA claimed that MSD had released more than half a billion gallons of raw sewage into rivers and streams between 2000 and 2006, in violation of the Clean Water Act.
The settlement was reached last summer, over the objection of Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster.
Koster's office later filed a motion to dismiss the state's claims against MSD without prejudice, allowing the state to preserve its own claims outside of the settlement, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
The state will remain a party to the complaint under the Clean Water Act.
"Although MSD and its ratepayers will incur substantial costs by implementing the proposed consent decree, this cost will be offset by the public benefit that will be gained through infrastructure improvements and compliance with the (Clean Water Act)," Judge Jackson wrote in her opinion.
MSD provides sewer and storm water service to 1.4 million people in St. Louis city and county.
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