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• 9 <br /> 1 at between $1 ,000 and $1, 500 per deposition for two or three of the <br /> 2 defendants' experts. <br /> 3 Mr. McDonald indicated they might argue that there is a general <br /> 4 litigation rule that the court could order the experts' depositions but <br /> 5 whether a class action hearing or motion is enough like a trial that the <br /> 6 court could order the deposition is a question the attorneys couldn' t <br /> 7 answer at this time. Mr. McDonald said their initial argument would be <br /> 8 that the City would rather not get pulled into these massive depositions <br /> 9 because of the cost and that the battle should instead be on the <br /> 10 affidavits both sides submit. There is no guarantee that argument would <br /> 11 be accepted, he added. <br /> 12 Councilmember Marks said he believed that the Army, "deep down in their <br /> 13 hearts , believed they were responsible for St. Anthony' s problems, " and <br /> 14 he asked the attorneys why, if that was true, the Army didn' t just <br /> 15 proceed with all due haste to solve the problem instead of fooling <br /> 16 around with this suite. He said "the more they delay the more it' s <br /> 17 going to cost them because the plume is continuing to flow and sooner or <br /> 18 later someone like the court or Congressman Sabo is going to force them <br /> 19 to shut it off and clean up the damage they've already caused as soon as <br /> 20 they can. " <br /> '1 Mr. Van DeNorth pointed out one of the reasons for the delay has been <br /> 22 that up to now, the MPCA has been reluctant to come out strongly related <br /> 23 to the plume connection between New Brighton and St. Anthony, but lately <br /> 24 have stated publicly that they believe the plume has reached to St. <br /> 25 Anthony and, in all probability, beyond the City. And, even though they <br /> 26 make that statement when the question is put to some of their experts <br /> 27 like Paul Goudreault, etc. they waffle by saying they "think that' s the <br /> 28 case, but we 'd like to see a little more evidence on it. " so the MPCA <br /> 29 is not applying the same pressure they did to make the Army sit down <br /> 30 with New Brighton to solve the problem. He also said he agreed with <br /> 31 Councilmember Ranallo' s point that the MPCA' s attention has been focused <br /> 32 on New Brighton' s much bigger problem for which he has heard New <br /> 33 Brighton is demanding between $13 ,000 ,000 and $14,000,000 where St. <br /> 34 Anthony is asking for only between three and four million dollars. <br /> 35 Councilmember Ranallo said the MPCA has been told not to get too rough <br /> 36 with the Army because the Army brings lots of money into Minnesota. He <br /> 37 also said he perceived this would have to follow the usual negotiation <br /> 38 process because if the Army conceded at this point, New Brighton would <br /> 39 probably demand $40,000,000. He said he has found the longer it takes, <br /> 40 the less the settlement is. <br /> 41 Councilmember Marks responded by saying it might cost the Army more to <br /> 42 wait when it came to St. Anthony because he had just learned from the <br /> 43 Finance Director of St. Louis Park that they had just had to shut down <br /> w44 their filtration system. This indicated to him that the City' s costs of <br /> 5 <br />