WITI-TV, MILWAUKEE —
The summer floods are long gone, but a FOX6 investigation finds damage claims are still trickling in to the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District. Hundreds of plaintiffs are suing MMSD for millions of dollars in property damage. Some are even trying to collect for emotional distress.
As if he hadn't been dumped on enough, Freeman Semons drove home from his brother's funeral on July 22nd to find his basement filling up with sewage. Semons said, "I just sit on the stairs, and just watch the water rise, and rise, and rise. I saw all my furniture just floating around."
Every trip down the steps is as a harsh reminder of the rec room that used to be his personal refuge. Semons would like to get some of it back. So he filed a damage claim for $29,000 with the government agency he blames for the mess. Semons says, "The deep tunnel project was supposed to take care of all of this."
Noel Latus' auto repair shop near Mitchell Airport was closed for three months after it flooded in 2008. Latus says, "When we got in, the shop was destroyed. The racks had fallen over. All the filters were destroyed...That just about took my knees out from under me. I couldn't believe it. I got sick to my stomach."
The creek that runs alongside his business is still at flood stage, and Latus blames MMSD for failing to clear out sediment that's choking off the creek's natural drainage. Latus says, "They're the ones who are responsible, and they're the ones who aren't doing anything about it."
Latus is seeking $165,000 to compensate for what he lost in two floods.
These are just two of the 300 claims against MMSD reviewed by FOX6 Investigators. The complaints ranged from $1,000 to $300,000 for damage caused by a sewage backup in a home worth only $120,000. A handful of homeowners are seeking payment for "Emotional, psychological, and physical duress."
MMSD Attorney Lauri Rollings says, "Experiencing a basement backup definitely. No questions asked does cause people to experience emotional distress, but the key question really is was the district liable for that basement backup?"
Rollings and her team are fighting more than $16 million in claims.
Most of them are now incorporated into two major lawsuits, both stemming from the storms in 2008. One suit is focused on the mechanical failure of an underground maintenance gate in Brown Deer.
The other lawsuit, involving more than 200 plaintiffs, blames MMSD for closing access to the deep tunnel and "needlessly causing sewage to back up".
Rollings blames mother nature, and says MMSD isn't to blame.
If there were deficiencies in the sewer system, Rollings believes they were further up the pipeline. She says, "The water was coming so quickly that it bottle necked in areas of local municipal systems before it even got to MMSD's system."
MMSD provided FOX6 with a computer animation of what they say is another major factor. Thousands of older homes in the area have foundation drains that are connected to the sanitary sewer lateral. A big storm adds a large amount of rainwater to a system designed for human waste. Rollings says, "They can greatly increase the amount of water that's flowing into the sanitary, and MMSD systems, which are primarily designed to deal with waste water."
Semons is still convinced MMSD is to blame, because of something that happened hours after his basement filled up with sewage. It just went away, and Semons says it was like someone flipped a switch.
Rollings says no one flipped a switch or opened a gate. She tells FOX6 that the system just caught up with itself.
No matter who wins in court, taxpayers will foot the bill. Since 2008, MMSD's legal budget has doubled from $1.2 million to $2.4 million a year.
People like Latus just want someone to take responsibility. He says, "Everybody stands in a circle, and they point a finger at each other and nothing ever gets done."
The June 2008 storms led to more than 300 damage claims, and multiple lawsuits. The July 2010 storms only generated 27 claims and no lawsuits.
While there is still time for new claims to come in, MMSD says it appears there will be far less litigation from this year's basement backups than the ones two years ago.
Is MMSD doing anything to try and prevent another round of sewage overflows? They say they are, but it has nothing to do with the deep tunnel.
The district released details of next year's proposed budget. It includes eight million to help homeowners fix the sewer pipes on their own property to keep excess rainwater out of the system.
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