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Flooding fix loses a race with the rains
By BILL COATS, Times Staff Writer
LUTZ -- New Year's Eve was the night when Fred and Iris Karavas showcased their new million-dollar house on Hog Island Lake. Friends flew in from foreign countries. Fred roasted a 60-pound boar. But water stole the show. About 21/2 inches of rain began to pour. Hog Island Lake, with a longtime flair for flooding, crept toward the party. By the time the rain stopped, the lake surface was two inches above the couple's dock. Water covered yards of new sod, 14 new sprinkler heads and a sandy patch of shoreline where the Karavases had hoped to light a bonfire. "We watched it rain and watched the lake fill up," Fred Karavas said. Amid this season's rains, there's a new twist to Hog Island's old, water-logged story: Hillsborough County is trying to fix the problem. But workers have been playing cat and mouse with storm fronts. This week, they finished installing an 800-foot pipeline under E County Line Road, from the northwest corner of Hog Island to a swamp crowning Lake Kell. The pipe will remain empty and closed most of the year. But when Hog Island rises too much, pumps can be attached. They'll draw water from Hog Island, and pump it down the pipe into Lake Kell's swamp. "I just have my fingers crossed that this is going to take care of the situation," said Antero "Sonny" Fernandez, a retired private investigator who has lived on Hog Island for 28 years. Over the years, water has come within an inch of Fernandez' back threshold during rainy periods. "I've had a solid sheet of water here," Fernandez said, pointing to his flat, sprawling back yard. "And that's scary." Fernandez said the problems date back at least to 1983, a rainy period following construction of a new neighborhood on Newberger Road, south of Hog Island and apparently in its flood path. In 1994, a new house was built on Newberger, blocking another outfall. Hog Island also was draining toward the northeast, into Pasco County. But in 1995, Willow Bend's developers extended Cypress Trail Drive across the path of that flow. Hog Island's water began rising, despite below-average rainfall. Hillsborough County consultants would later conclude that a culvert under Cypress Trail was installed three feet too high. El Nino brought one of the wettest winters in local history in 1997 and 1998. Lawns, docks, septic tanks and family rooms flooded around the lake. The Fernandezes couldn't flush toilets for 31/2 months. Hillsborough County launched a countywide series of watershed studies. Hog Island became one of the hot topics in the Cypress Creek Watershed. During 2001, engineers devised the Hog Island/Kell pumping plan. Permits were obtained last fall and work began Dec. 9. It's costing more than $70,000. "We knew another El Nino was going to occur during the winter," said Horatiu Droc, the county's project engineer. "We wanted to get it done by then." But El Nino got here first. Last month's rain was six times the average for December. Fernandez' toilets stopped again, for two weeks. He brought his big recreational vehicle out of a muddy pole barn. "That was my Port-O-Let on wheels," Fernandez said. The new relief pipe won't be available for at least a week, said Larry Peila, general superintendent for Southwest Contracting, which installed it. "We've had so many delays because of the rain," said Droc, the engineer. "We're expecting another one this weekend." -- Bill Coats can be reached at (813) 269-5309 or coats@sptimes.com .
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