Golden Acres had drainage problems before last month's rains, they say, and the county did nothing about it.
By BRIDGET HALL GRUMET
Published July 10, 2003
[Times photo: Brendan Fitterer]
Concerned that his property could be flooded by the recent heavy rains, Joseph Zolton piled sandbags on top of the berm in his back yard. "Right now you've got to do what you've got to do to protect yourself," he said. "The county's not going to do anything."
[Times photo: Dan McDuffie]
Yellow Lake Drive resident Dean Feola explains how he uses a pump to drain the floodwater around his home. The small pond in front of his house, in background at right, has flowed over its banks and up to his house. He pumped more than 200,000 gallons into a drainage channel across the street, but stopped when it was evident that it was making a neighbor's flooding worse.
NEW PORT RICHEY - As the once-dry Bonnet Lake began overflowing from last month's downpours, residents in Golden Acres turned to the county for help.
The floodwaters were coming fast and fierce, but county officials said there was nothing they could do. So several residents took matters into their own hands.
Joseph and Linda Zolton piled a couple of hundred sandbags on top of their 4-foot-tall backyard berm, making a taller wall that kept the lake out of their yard. Their next-door neighbors on Yellow Lake Drive did the same.
And the folks three doors down, Dean and Missy Feola, rented their own water pump last week to try to drain the 1 to 2 feet of water surrounding their home. They pumped more than 200,000 gallons into a drainage channel across the street, but said they stopped when they saw it was making a neighbor's flooding worse.
"Right now you've got to do what you've got to do to protect yourself," Joseph Zolton said. "The county's not going to do anything."
Only because there's nothing the county could do, said Mike Garrett, an engineer with the stormwater management division.
"The quantity of water we're looking at is so large, there's no place to pump that quantity of water," Garrett said. "I can't get rid of the water."
But Golden Acres residents blame the county for failing to fix the neighborhood's well-documented drainage problems before last month's rains. In fact, they say the county has made things worse in the past year or two by allowing several homes to be built in low-lying areas on Yellow Lake Drive, forcing the water from those lots to collect elsewhere.
At least two of those homes were built on lots larger than an acre. And the county doesn't require drainage plans for properties that size, said Cindy Jolly, the county's development director.
"The county is very responsible for this," said Missy Feola, whose Yellow Lake Drive yard still is filled with water and snakes. "It's their fault we flooded. It's not God's fault for making it rain."
Bonnet Lake is part of the Rocky Sink and Bear Creek watersheds, which were studied a decade ago by the county and the Southwest Florida Water Management District. The 1993 report pinpointed the drainage problems and proposed an elaborate system of culverts that would help the area drain faster after heavy rains.
After the 1998 El Nino floods gave the problem new urgency, the county started designing the culverts. But when it submitted the plans to Swiftmud last July, the agency sent back a slew of technical questions.
"We never had reasonable assurances that this project would not flood surrounding properties," Swiftmud communications director Linda McBride said. "We never denied it; (the county) withdrew it, and now they're coming back to us talking."
The design would allow water to drain from Bonnet Lake to Yellow Lake, then Bass Lake, and ultimately into the Pithlachascotee River. But first the county must prove the system won't flood the river or siphon water away from aquifer recharge areas, McBride said.
Once it gets Swiftmud's blessing, the project will likely cost about $2-million and take two or three years to complete, stormwater engineer Garrett said.
Even then it won't be a cure-all. Homes in low-lying areas still could flood, he said, but the culverts would help the water drain faster.
The water is just starting to recede around Bass Lake, where about a dozen yards along Cameo Drive and Sunrise Lane are flooded. Last week the county brought in four portable toilets and the Salvation Army left a portable shower unit for the residents whose wells and septic systems remain under water.
"Everybody's cranky. I can't say I blame them," said Kim Proebster, whose Cameo Drive home still is surrounded by water. "This is unreal."
The water also is slowly draining in Golden Acres, although the frustration shows no signs of fading. Joanne McWethy has lived on Yellow Lake Drive for 32 years, and although she's lucky enough not to be flooded, she worries about her water-logged neighbors.
"The county has definitely made a mess all the way around out here without thinking and checking," McWethy said, shaking her head.
- Bridget Hall Grumet covers Pasco County government. She can be reached in west Pasco at 869-6244, or toll-free at 1-800-333-7505, ext. 6244. Her e-mail address is hall@sptimes.com
