2013-08-12 Regular City Council Session

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MSD did not own River des Peres but the property owners did, therefore they are not responsible for its cleanup. Ms. Carr said she ask for some kind of verification and even wrote to the Executive Director Mr. Hoelscher and never received a response from him. Ms. Carr noted the Director of Public Works and Parks put together a list of the relative properties, some privately owned, some owned by the City, and some owned by MSD, with percentages. Her question was and has been cleared up now that she has walked and found that there are obstructions in the nature part of the River des Peres. Ms. Carr stated there was trash, fallen trees, limbs and other things that hang the water up a bit. She received a letter from Mr. Stein who said he noticed three of the pipes near the tennis courts at Heman Park created an obstruction or a damn, in the low water bridge as well, every time it rained. The question was who really owned the River des Peres. Ms. Carr referred to the report put out by Mayor Welsch which had a letter from MSD to the then City Attorney John Mulligan, stating the River des Peres is a non-navigable natural water course. Under the Missouri Law, (and readying from the report, which copied MSD’s December 15, 2008 letter to City Attorney John Mulligan) “the ownership of the land surrounding or bounded by natural water course is the riparian owner, all the land owners whose properties adjoin to a body water has the right to make reasonable use of it and have title to the center-line of the stream bed. This general rule applies to the River des Peres unless the property owner had conveyed his or her riparian right and title to a third party. Although, MSD was empowered to take title to the sanitary and storm water system facilities within its boundaries by adoption of its Charter, generally speaking the riparian owners of unimproved natural water course, such as the River Des River have not rd conveyed their title to MSD”. The work done in the 3 ward she listened to what MSD said, and noted MSD called those sections improved. In fact MSD will be talking to the Mendell neighborhood about improving it, so Ms. Carr felt that MSD was hedging a bit, because they have made vast improvements to even the natural sections. Again reading from the 2008 MSD letter, “Natural water courses such as the River des Peres in University City are not consider part of the storm water system and facility except as used for collecting and conducting storm water to, through and from drainage areas to the point of final outlet. Some concrete areas along River des Peres within University City that were constructed by the City or County as part of a bridge or road covert belonged to the entity that constructed them. MSD has no role or responsibility for the maintenance of the facility owned by other public entities. MSD has adopted a storm water ordinance in 2008, #12560, which set forth among other things, its policy for maintenance of storm water, sewer, facilities and systems. As a part of this policy, MSD will remove obstructions from improved channels to protect and maintain the integrity of the channel. Based on available resources they will also remove reported obstructions from the unimproved channel on private property and will take necessary action to protect its sewer facilities”. Ms. Carr said for all the people who were walking through the water above their knees, it was surface water flooding and MSD said they would not take care of that. She said MSD does not want to take care of anything. The unimproved channel is treated differently than MSD sewer facilities under storm water ordinance. Once again, Ms. Carr read from MSD’s December 15, 2008, letter to City Attorney John Mulligan, “Strictly speaking the adjacent property 11