While Swiftmud targets two brothers, Sierra Pines residents discover further development adds to their woes.
By BRIDGET HALL GRUMET
Published August 3, 2003
LUTZ - Margie Coffaro looked across the back yard of her 1 1/2-acre property, past the fenced area where she once kept a friend's white Arabian quarter horse, past the cypress tree where her grandchildren posed for family photos, past the grassy expanse where her fiance's German shepherds usually romp.
"The reason I bought this home is because of the back yard," Coffaro said with a weary smile.
But she hasn't been able to use it in eight months. Coffaro's back yard on Gunlock Drive, along with patches of other yards in her Sierra Pines neighborhood, has been under water since November.
The water is up to five feet deep in some parts. Her ferns and leafy elephant's ear plants have been washed away. Instead of grass, Coffaro now has a sea of standing rainwater blanketed with green algae.
"It doesn't take an engineering degree to see the water is not flowing anywhere," said Danny Otero, Coffaro's frustrated fiance. "And this hasn't been a problem in the past 15 years."
But a "perfect storm" combination of factors has made it a big problem now.
The Southwest Florida Water Management District pins some of the blame on brothers Peter and Nick Geraci Jr., who own a commercial sand pit on their 1,000-acre ranch to the east.
In a June 27 notice of violation, Swiftmud said the brothers "contributed to the flooding conditions" at Sierra Pines and neighboring Meadowbrook by pumping stormwater off their property since December. Swiftmud plans to charge them $96,430 in fines plus $2,500 in enforcement costs.
The Geracis' hydrogeologist disputes those findings, however, saying the brothers have steered all of their stormwater into lakes and drainage areas on their ranch.
"We have not discharged water off the site since January," said Cliff Harrison, acknowledging some water might have drained off-site after the heavy December rains.
There are other factors, too. The water table is higher, thanks to decreased pumping at the nearby south Pasco well field, so rainwater takes longer to seep into the ground.
Sierra Pines residents also blame the recent construction around them: the widening of State Road 54 to the north, the Suncoast Parkway built a few years ago to the west, the new homes to the south in the Hillsborough communities of Heritage Harbor and VillaRosa.
The winding, woodsy community is bordered on three sides by roads and homes that sit 4 to 8 feet higher than it.
"Slowly but surely, everything around us is being built up, and what they're creating is a bowl in the ground," said Jose Diaz, whose Wildwood Lane home sits along a flooded canal. "And unfortunately, we're the bowl."
The tidal wave
By all accounts, Sierra Pines is a low-lying area peppered with wetlands and cypress heads. Many homes in this 374-lot community were built before Swiftmud's 1984 drainage standards went into effect. It wasn't until a decade ago that the county installed stormwater culverts under the neighborhood streets.
Some yards flood after heavy rains, but they used to drain within a week or so, said Alan Fernandez, who moved to the neighborhood in 1983. Even the 1998 flooding from El Nino dissipated within two weeks.
"We never had a problem like now," said Fernandez, who has about 11/2 feet of standing water in the canal along his yard. "Now, the grounds are squishy almost all the time."
It's been that way since Nov. 27, when the area received about 11 or 12 inches of rain. Coffaro said she was sipping a cup of coffee in her screened porch when a tidal wave of stormwater rushed into her backyard from the south.
Immediately she was alarmed. Coffaro knew the stormwater was supposed to drain toward the south.
Muddying the waters
The same rains that hammered Sierra Pines that day also flooded the Geracis' commercial sand pit, a 27-acre operation just north of the Pasco-Hillsborough county line. To keep the sand pit open, the brothers had to pump out thousands of gallons of stormwater since last December.
Harrison, the Geracis' hydrogeologist, said the water was pumped to lakes and other drainage ponds on the brothers' ranch to avoid flooding anyone else.
Swiftmud officials reached a different conclusion after a series of visits between December and April. The agency said the prominent landowners were, in fact, adding to the flooding problem in Sierra Pines.
Muddied stormwater from the Geracis' property flowed into about 90 acres of wetlands and surface waters in and around the ranch, Swiftmud wrote in the June 27 notice of violation. The turbidity of the stormwater - essentially a measure of its muddiness - was between 11/2 and 21/2 times the state limit for water entering wetlands and water bodies, Swiftmud spokesman Michael Molligan said.
The water pumping wasn't the only problem, Molligan added. The Geracis also disrupted the flow of stormwater by building a haul road, a berm, and some culverts and ditches without Swiftmud permits. Another haul road was built with a permit, but it sits 11/2- to 21/2-feet higher than the permit allowed, Molligan said.
"It blocks the natural flow of water if you put the road too high," he said.
Along with the notice of violation, Swiftmud drafted a nine-page "consent order," a proposed agreement to fix the situation. It calls for the Geracis to stop pumping stormwater until Swiftmud approves a new drainage plan for the site. It also calls for the Geracis to pay $98,930 in fines and costs.
Nick Geraci has butted heads with Swiftmud before. In 1995, he replaced a washed-out road at his ranch with a higher road and a 30-inch drainage pipe - without a Swiftmud permit. Nearby lake levels rose quickly.
But Geraci blamed the 1995 flooding on the widening of N Dale Mabry Highway and the construction of the Veterans Expressway, saying both roads altered drainage patterns. He sued the state Department of Transportation and received a $112,500 settlement, but not an admission of wrongdoing.
No agreement
The Geracis have not agreed to Swiftmud's proposed fines and fixes, as outlined in the June 27 consent order. It's unlikely they will.
"We don't have any information that shows any of the Geracis' operations are contributing to anything off their site," Harrison said.
Unless Swiftmud reaches an agreement with the brothers, the agency will have to turn to the courts to enforce the order.
"If we can't get this thing resolved in the next few weeks, we may be going to the August (Swiftmud) board meeting asking for authorization to initiate litigation," Molligan said.
But Harrison said the blame belongs elsewhere. A breached berm allowed water from Heritage Harbor to spill onto the Geracis' property, and then toward Sierra Pines, he said. A raised road in the south Pasco well field also could have steered floodwaters toward Sierra Pines, he said.
And according to Tampa Bay Water, pumping at the nearby south Pasco well field has dropped from 14-million to 3.9-million gallons per day, now that more drinking water is coming from the Hillsborough River, the Tampa Bypass Channel and the desalination plant.
That means the water table is higher and rainwater will take longer to percolate down.
"There's a multitude of drainage problems in that area," Harrison said. "It's almost nearsighted to pin it on any one (source)."
But Molligan said the Heritage Harbor berm had a minor impact on the flooding and has since been repaired. He also said the roadwork had no major effect.
As for the new homes in Heritage Harbor and VillaRosa, and the new Suncoast Parkway and wider SR 54, Molligan said the projects met Swiftmud's drainage standards. They shouldn't be sending any extra stormwater Sierra Pines' way, he said.
Pasco County Commissioner Pat Mulieri, whose district includes Sierra Pines, wonders whether those standards are strict enough. She wants to look at old maps of the area, see how the drainage patterns have changed, and possibly require stricter drainage standards in the area.
"Sure there are low places," said Mulieri, who plans to meet with Swiftmud and county engineers about the flooding. "But I think there's more than that, and we need to get to that."
In the meantime, residents are considering forming a homeowners association in Sierra Pines to lobby for a fix to their flooding problem. Some homeowners say the county could improve the drainage by clearing out existing culverts and installing new ones.
The entire experience has been an eye-opener for resident Walter McGivney, who said he asked county permitting officials about flooding two years ago before he built his home on Sierra Pines Boulevard.
"They pointed out, "You're not even in a flood zone,"' McGivney said. "If I'm not in a flood zone, how come I'm flooding?"
- 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 bhall@sptimes.com
