ST. LOUIS 鈥 A salvage company operator long tasked with removing a sunken World War II-era naval ship from the Mississippi River now faces a lawsuit that accuses him of years of misconduct and illegal dumping on south St. 亚洲无码鈥 riverfront.
The accusations fill a lawsuit filed Friday in St. 亚洲无码 Circuit Court by the parent company of American Commercial Barge Line, which leases and operates terminals and barge fleets 鈥 鈥渟imilar to a parking lot鈥 for barges, the suit says 鈥 along the riverbank.
The company alleges that years of trouble have festered at one of those sites, just south of downtown, where rusted metal from the USS Inaugural 鈥 used as a minesweeper in World War II 鈥 still protrudes from murky water when the river is low, like it is at present. Once moored upstream as an attraction, the boat was ripped from shore and slammed into the Poplar Street Bridge during the Great Flood of 1993. It was temporarily rescued and lashed to a nearby barge, before sinking a couple of months later.
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There, near its resting place, the company alleges that John Patzius, a longtime salvager who runs Patzius Wrecking and Salvage and who formerly worked with famed City Museum creator Bob Cassilly, has serially violated a late 1990s agreement to remove the boat. The work was expected to take one or two years, according to the suit.
Besides failing to remove the USS Inaugural, the lawsuit says Patzius has invited 鈥 and profited from 鈥 unauthorized dumping of dirt, debris and waste material at the barge company鈥檚 adjacent property. The suit also accuses him of fraud and continued trespass.
Patzius, reached by phone Monday, said he was unaware of the new lawsuit and strongly denied any wrongdoing. Furthermore, he said, the barge company is at fault for problems tied to the site鈥檚 salvage work 鈥 saying its barges, tethered nearby, were too close to the boat and have 鈥渕ashed鈥 it when high water caused them to float over the vessel and then get lowered on top of it.
鈥淭he culprit is the barge company,鈥 he said. 鈥淭hey stopped progress. They hit the boat.鈥
Patzius also threatened to sue the company, in response.
鈥淵ou know what, I鈥檓 going to sue them for hitting it,鈥 he said. 鈥淭hey better just let me finish the (expletive) boat and take the suit off.鈥
He said that his access to the site, however, is currently blocked. Indeed, the lawsuit said that the barge company eventually put up a fence in an attempt to keep Patzius or people he works with off the property.
Disputes about Patzius鈥檚 conduct at the site have simmered for decades, the lawsuit says, prompting meetings and investigations involving a wide range of entities and agencies, including the city鈥檚 Port Authority and the Missouri Department of Natural Resources. Removing the material dumped at the property would cost more than $1 million, according to the suit.
Despite the decades that have passed, Patzius 鈥 who said he has been salvaging for about 75 years since leaving school at 14 鈥 thinks the remaining work on the boat could take as little as three months, in the right conditions. But the river can often complicate things and delay progress, he says.
鈥淭he river goes up and down, so you鈥檝e got to work with the river,鈥 he said. 鈥淪ometimes you got to wait a month.鈥