State Sues to Have Sunken Barge Removed; DNR Says It Poses Threat to Boaters in Menomonee River
Posted on: Wednesday, 19 September 2007, 15:00 CDT
By MARIE ROHDE
The state is asking that the former owner of a storage yard in the Menomonee Valley be required to remove a barge that sank in the river off of his business more than a year ago, saying the large booms protruding from the water could threaten safe navigation by boaters.
The former owner, Basil E. Ryan Jr., said this week that the situation is a part of an ongoing dispute over the state's acquisition of the property by eminent domain and told a reporter to call his lawyer, Alan Marcuvitz. Marcuvitz's assistant said he no longer represents Ryan.
A hearing before Milwaukee County Circuit Judge John Franke was delayed Monday at the state's request. A hearing will be held Oct. 22 on the matter.
Ryan could face civil forfeitures of $10 to $500 a day plus legal fees and the cost of removing the submerged barge.
Ryan was long embroiled in a dispute with the City of Milwaukee over the use of his 10-acre property at 260 N. 12th St.
The state Department of Transportation acquired the property through condemnation, but Ryan is appealing the $1.35 million the state offered for the property. The state also removed more than 200 junked cars from the property and paid Ryan $130,000 for the vehicles.
The state is using the land as a staging area for equipment used in the reconstruction of the Marquette Interchange. A portion of the land will be used to construct piers as part of that highway project, but the remainder of the land will be given to the city for redevelopment after the project is completed.
In the lawsuit, Richard A. Reed, a conservation warden with the Department of Natural Resources, said that a barge had been anchored and attached to the bed of the river between at least October 2004 and mid-July 2006, and that it was overgrown with vegetation. State officials say they told Ryan that the barge had to be removed and that the state's legal action acquiring the property required that it be removed Aug. 2, 2005. It wasn't.
The DNR got a tip that the barge sank on July 13, 2006 - some time after the DOT had acquired Ryan's land - but transportation officials said the deal they made didn't include the barge and they had no intention of pulling it out of the water.
A month later, according to the lawsuit, a DNR warden told Marcuvitz that a private individual had offered to remove the barge in return for ownership of the barge. Ryan asked for copies of bids the DNR had received for the removal of the barge in order to get a better deal, the lawsuit says. Ryan was then given until Dec. 31, 2006, to remove the barge.
The state had received two other estimates, one for $35,000 and the other for $57,289.
The protruding booms could be a danger for boaters, and the barge's generator or engine might corrode and cause leakage into the water, the DNR maintains.
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Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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