CC 08-29-1983 - Laserfiche WebLink

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minimum six inch watermain from 96 to the north. That cost, as I recall, is approximately $130,000 - that estimate. The City plan calls for a 12 inch and an eight inch watermain to be constructed for fire flow protection. That cost is approximately $170,000, the difference being $40,000. That difference was proposed to be assessed to the abutting property owners and the rate would have been about $15.00 a foot for residential - 1.5 times that residential rate for conunercial. . MAN IN AUDIENCE: We're still not understanding why ours is more. MR. CHRISTOFFERSEN: Because super funds would be picking up part of the costs - $130,000 for the cost of that water- main. MR. DAVID McDONALD, Attorney with Briggs and Morgan, St. Paul: (Inaudible) representing some of the other people in a lawsuit against some of the potentially responsible parties for the contamination of this area. I think most of the residents here expressed their positions pretty clearly. I'm not going to reiterate that. I think Jeanne Winiecki says it well when she says that they're sort of in a Catch-22. They do want to save an adequate supply of water. However, they don't feel responsible for the contaminated water con- ditions up there. They 'don't really feel that they should be paying for this water supply. I just want to make you aware of one of the legal problems that the residents may have if you were to go ahead and order the improvement and assess them for it. Under the Minnesota Environmental Response and Liability Act, which is the Minnesota Superfund - there's a section in that act - Section 4, Subdivision 6 - which establishes a defense to parties that may have claims filed against them. We have initiated a lawsuit against some of the parties that we believe are responsible for that. That part of the law was to give a defense to those parties if certain actions were taken by a political subdivision, such as yourself, or even by a private person, without seeking Minnesota Pollution Control Agency authorization for those responses. There is a provision of law where you could go, if you wanted to, and seek approval by the MPCA before you did that and seek response costs from the parties responsible. If you didn't do that, there is at least an argument under the law that the people that we may sue on behalf of those residents that say there wasn't any EPA authorization for these costs (inaudible) and therefore we have a defense. I think that may prejudice both the City's position, if they ever decided to go after the potentially responsible (inaudible) and may prejudice the position of the rest. I think, for those reasons, while we do desire a safe water supply - I guess the point's been made by the neighbors . -8-