UNIVERSITY CITY — In the middle of this old suburb’s winding streets and brick homes, one of the region’s main waterways, the River Des Peres, dives underground. The residents of University City rely on the river to quickly and neatly whisk stormwater away from homes, reducing floods and keeping them safe.
But here, where the river plunges into a tunnel that runs for miles, hulking masses loom in the darkness: Chunks of concrete are strewn across the bottom of the graffiti-stained tube. Some of the piles are 5 feet high, 10 feet wide and 30 feet long.
And stormwater experts say they’re a problem. When major rains hit, obstructions slow down rivers, back up water, and add to the damage wrought by flooding. Moreover, it’s not just the tunnel. A sprawling snarl of tree branches is still pressed up against the bridge at North Hanley Road. A giant tree trunk is stuck under the Groby Road bridge. And a sandbar has formed in the river channel at Pennsylvania Avenue.
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Experts have been calling on government bodies to take responsibility for years. Now, they say, someone has to clean the river out. Before the floods hit again.
“This is an awful, slow-motion disaster here,†said Bob Criss, a University City resident and Washington University professor who has long studied flooding.
Last summer, a historic rain turned the River Des Peres into a torrent. It flooded at least 300 homes in University City alone. A year later, some of the spots most vulnerable to flooding — like where the channel is forced under bridges — are still clogged by the detritus of years past. And that, warns a group of stormwater experts and flood-prep advocates, threatens the very neighborhoods that flooded the worst here last year.
But the group is struggling to get agencies who play a role in the management of River Des Peres to pay attention, much less clean out the channel.
The Metropolitan Sewer District, which manages stormwater and wastewater in the region, said it isn’t responsible for the River Des Peres flooding, wasn’t aware of the piles in the tunnel, and surmised they’d have to be the size of a car or truck to affect the river’s flow. “The flooding they experienced is not due to any of MSD’s assets or debris, and MSD is not responsible for preventing flooding, especially not in a known floodplain,†said spokeswoman Bess McCoy.
University City, home to the upper section of the river, said it isn’t to blame, either. “Ultimately, MSD has the authority over it and the responsibility for the River Des Peres,†said City Manager Gregory Rose.
The ºüÀêÊÓƵ District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which helps manage the River Des Peres, also said that clearing debris is not its job.
It’s unclear when the blockages got into the tunnel, or where they came from.
Residents are frustrated.
Donivan James lives on Shaftesbury Avenue, a few houses upstream of the Hanley bridge.
James, 26, said 6 feet of water and sewage flooded his family’s basement last July. He saw whole trees floating in the street outside. When the floodwaters receded, branches stuck out of the sewer drains. At the end of the block, a messy pile of tree trunks, tree branches, sediment, couches and debris had collected at the bridge. A mattress lay on top.
“It had to have gotten clogged,†James said. “It had to have. It was stacked from the ground up with trees and couches and stuff like that. It looked like the bridge stopped the stuff from moving down the river.â€
There were trees piled up around another bridge farther east on Shaftesbury, where the avenue curved south over the river channel, and trees strewn across the field of University City High School, James said. Months later, it took workers with a skid steer to haul away the debris.
That was the only time James and other residents have seen any crews clean the river channel. University City, MSD — or another government body — needs to step up, James said.
“If they’re not responsible, who is?†he said. “Do we have to talk to the president of the United States? Jesus? The governor? Someone needs to be the big guy and take the lead.â€
‘That one pile — good Lord!’
Four years and multiple severe flash floods ago, the issues were one focus of a 2019 Storm Water Task Force report prepared for University City officials, which devoted a whole section to “undersized and clogged bridges and culverts.â€
First, it said, some bridges over the River Des Peres were too small. The report called the Groby bridge, for example, inadequate to accommodate the water from even a two-year storm. The report recommended “steepening the channel walls†under the structure.
And small bridges more easily clog, and clogged culverts cause water to back up, the report said, magnifying overbank flooding, and altering flow patterns in ways that can exacerbate damage. Obstacles in the path of the river not only take up space in the channel, but also create turbulence.
“Significant problems with reduced conveyance and clogging of stream channels exist along the RdP and its tributaries due to lack of maintenance in the channel,†the report said. “Problems can propagate far from the point of clogging or flow restriction.â€
“The channels should be cleared of excessive silt and large debris,†the report concluded, in bold. “The City should identify the agencies responsible for channel maintenance and encourage timely maintenance.â€
And last summer revealed another problem: Flooding got worse at the tunnel, too, said Criss, the stormwater expert.
Near the mouth of the tunnel, he said the event registered as an approximately 500-year flood, far greater than the 10- or 20-year events upstream, and severe enough to overwhelm the 20-foot-tall opening.
Criss said he immediately suspected the tunnel was clogged. And after discovering last winter the large piles of concrete inside of the tunnel — there are at least six of them stretching a quarter-mile into the tunnel — he thinks those contributed to problems upstream.
“That one pile — good Lord! — it’s 30 feet long,†Criss said. “There might even be more, further downstream.â€
Obstructions like this, Criss said, aren’t the biggest issues in river management. But they contribute to problems, and are a relatively easy fix.
“This is standard maintenance that has been too long deferred,†he said. “We ought to at least do the easy stuff.â€
The matter of who should take responsibility for the River Des Peres has long occupied a much-disputed gray area — with University City, the Army Corps and MSD all denying that river maintenance falls into their domain.
But tones are beginning to change, at least outwardly.
Rose, the U. City manager, said the city is open to sharing some responsibilities. The city “has decided to take a leadership role†on certain projects that can reduce flood risks, he said. A coordinated regional approach needs to be taken to adequately address local flood risks, he said, even if that means creating a new entity with such authority.
And MSD said it could be such an entity. “We fully recognize that this is a problem, not only in University City, but across our service area,†said McCoy, the spokeswoman. “We also think that we are in a position to be a key player in a regional approach to addressing this problem.â€
The Army Corps also said it takes multiple players to manage the river. “Watersheds and rivers like the River Des Peres are shared responsibilities,†said Corps spokesman George Stringham.
But U. City and MSD, at least, said they need money to tackle the problem regionally. MSD is reviewing a proposal that would draw flood-related revenue from a property tax on residential customers, and a charge based on the amount of paved or impervious surfaces for commercial customers.
“So stores with huge parking lots would be paying based on that,†said McCoy. Those funding proposals are expected to be put to voters next April.
Who will clean the channel?
The year since the flood has been characterized by dogged efforts from some, aiming to call attention to the risks.
Many efforts — from launching an electronic flood alert system, to posting flood-height signs, to investigating the River Des Peres tunnel — have been spearheaded by the University City Commission on Storm Water Issues, which is made up of volunteers with technical and scientific expertise, honed through careers at places like Boeing and Washington University.
On Thursday, the stormwater commission and University City’s public works chief, Darin Girdler, arranged a tour of the channel. Attendees included a pair of MSD representatives and two city council members.
Girdler said that one goal of the event was to share information and try to find “glitches†in how MSD and U. City coordinate river management.
Toward the end of the tour, the city council members on the trip sought to learn basic details about tunnel maintenance or inspection routines from MSD.
But Debra Aylsworth, MSD’s assistant director of operations, said there isn’t a tunnel maintenance program. She said she wasn’t sure of the last time it was inspected. “It’s not frequent,†she said.
Channel inspections, she said, typically occur on two- or five-year intervals, depending on whether the channel is “improved†or natural.
The news surprised some there.
“I’m blown away by ‘no maintenance program,’†said Jeff Hales, a U. City councilman who attended the tour. “I would think after a major storm, they could fly drones through, (or) walk through.â€
Criss echoed Hales’ disbelief and stressed the gravity of a management vacuum.
“They’re not responsible for the tunnel?†he said. “That’s pretty remarkable.â€
“It’s a critical issue,†Criss continued. “It needs cleaned up before the next flood.â€
Nassim Benchaabane of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.