NFL legend Joe Montana among homeowners suing San Fran after neighborhood was flooded by sewage

NFL legend Joe Montana is joining 60 of his San Francisco neighbors in suing the city after his neighborhood was flooded by millions of gallons of “toxic fecal” matter.

Montana lives in the city’s most expensive neighborhood. The suit asserts that the city failed to upkeep and maintain its “antiquated” wastewater system. Real estate mogul Victor Makras has also joined the suit.

Flooding by torrential rains sent more than 18 million gallons of wastewater into the posh bayside homes on New Year’s Eve, according to the Daily Mail. It was the second-heaviest rainfall in San Francisco’s history with 5.46 inches of rain.

Houses in that neighborhood average $2.6 million. The sewage streamed to the bay right through the low-lying Marina district turning it into a massive landscape of filth.

“It flowed in and around plaintiffs’ properties, permeating the soils, walls, and floors, and depositing highly contaminated and toxic fecal and other raw sewage matter in and around Plaintiffs’ homes,” the lawsuit charges.

“The part of this system that runs through the Marina is antiquated and has been neglected and inadequately maintained by the city and county of San Francisco. As a result, the system routinely gets overwhelmed, overflows, and inundates the plaintiffs’ properties and neighborhood with untreated sewage and contaminated water,” the suit further states.

Homeowners tried to file claims for damages against the city but were denied, according to the lawsuit.

San Francisco’s storm drains are connected to its wastewater system. That means whenever there is a flood, sewage mixes with run-off.

These contaminated run-offs have killed thousands of fish. They have also caused massive algae blooms over the past two summers. Following the New Year’s storm, over 2.3 million gallons of sewage ran into the bay, according to the Daily Mail.

An additional 4.5 million gallons of sewage ran down Marina Boulevard in October 2021. That followed the closing of the nearby Pierce Street outfall by the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission.

The lawsuit contends that the commission attempted to protect the bay by shutting down the outfall, but it didn’t work. The sewage water gushed out of manhole covers and into the streets.

“When they closed the Pierce Street outfall they knew it was going to have consequences and they didn’t compensate for it,” Jeff Ruch of lobby group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility claimed.

After years of this disgusting situation not being addressed, the regional water board has finally started looking into sewage overflows in the Marine area. The Utilities Commission has vowed that it will allocate and spend $9 billion to repair its infrastructure over the next 10 years.

(Video Credit: Daily Mail)

(Video Credit: Daily Mail)

Khaldoun Baghdadi, the former head of the city’s Human Rights Commission, is leading the charge in the lawsuit.

“We don’t only trust the city to maintain the sewage infrastructure, but we pay it for doing so,” she told the San Francisco Standard in an interview. “When the city makes the decisions that cause raw sewage to flood homes, it is responsible for compensating residents.”

City spokeswoman Jen Kwart attempted to deflect blame and instead pointed a finger at the “almost unprecedented” nature of the storm for the damage inflicted upon the millionaires’ homes.

“It was the strongest storm to hit San Francisco in more than 170 years,” she asserted. “The storm, and not the city’s infrastructure, was responsible for widespread flooding throughout the city. We are reviewing the complaint and will respond in court.”

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