U.S. Water News Online
MILLSTADT, Ill. -- A farm owner in the village of Millstadt won a round in his fight against modernization when a St. Clair County judge issued an order preventing the construction of a water line across his land.
William Boardman argued that the water line would service a subdivision of houses that would threaten his rural way of life. St. Clair County Associate Judge Richard Aguirre issued an order granting a preliminary injunction that prevents construction of the line on Boardman's land.
"It was a surprise to me. I don't know why the village didn't fight this," Boardman said.
Aguirre's order stops the water line well short of the Manors of Millstadt, a subdivision in the early stages of construction.
The injunction affects only a small portion of the two-pronged, nearly five-mile water line, Millstadt Mayor Weldon Harber said. The project, funded with a low-interest state loan, will cost about $860,000 including construction costs and interest.
"We need to take time to think about what we should do," Harber said.
Frank Miller, who owns the land where the subdivision is being constructed, said he will try to work with village officials to get a water line to his development.
Boardman and a group of supporters also are fighting the village and St. Clair County in court over the county zoning board's decision to rezone 8,000 acres near Millstadt to accommodate single-family residences.
Village officials say development of the area 14 miles southeast of St. Louis is inevitable.
"Millstadt's gonna grow whether people like it or not," Harber has said.
Boardman neighbor Dean Pruitt, 51, said suburbia does not belong in Millstadt. Pruitt lives on 40 acres and in a home built in the 1850s.
"It's instinctively wrong to put a subdivision in the middle of a corn field," Pruitt said, "In a few years ... you'll have suburbia all over this place."
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