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Seminole lays blame for poor drainage on area golf course

An engineering study determines that pipes under a private golf course are too small to handle heavy rains.

By ANNE LINDBERG
Published July 12, 2006

SEMINOLE - A city-commissioned study has concluded that at least some of the drainage problems in Seminole Lakes Country Club Estates is the fault of the privately owned golf course.

The study showed that the city's system is clear throughout the area. One pipe under the Seminole Lake Golf Course has roots invading it. But the real problem, according to the study, is that the pipes under the course are too small. When storms come, the pipes can't handle the volume of water.

Seminole City Manager Frank Edmunds has asked the city's engineering consultants to figure out what it will take - and cost - to fix the problem. Then he will meet with the course owners and managers.

The cause arose at some point between 1970 and 1980 when the golf course owners covered over a drainage ditch, Edmunds said.

When they did, they put in a small corrugated pipe. That means two larger concrete pipes owned by the city drain into that smaller opening, which makes the system back up during heavy rains.

The result is flooding along Augusta Boulevard, according to the engineers Seminole hired.

Guillermo Ruiz, the St. Petersburg attorney who represents the golf course, was out of the office for the day Tuesday and could not be reached for comment.

"Their conclusion is very, very clear," Edmunds said. "That conclusion is the apparent cause of the flooding is the pipe on the golf course. It's what we expected."

One solution would be to remove the pipe under the course and reopen the ditch, Edmunds said. The other would be to replace the smaller pipes with larger ones.

But that explanation did not please several residents of Seminole Lakes.

"This is ridiculous. You're talking and talking and talking," homeowners association president Roberta Filzmaier said during a recent workshop on the issue.

The flooding has been a problem since before the area was annexed six years ago, she said. The city promised then to fix it and should not try to foist its problems onto the course.

In an e-mail after the workshop, Filzmaier wrote: "At your workshop last night, everything I heard about what happened at the country club to drain their green space during the '60s, '70s and '80s was hogwash. It has nothing to do with the inadequate drainage of stormwater from the public streets. This neighborhood is not asking for you to improve the drainage on the golf course, we are asking that you drain water from public streets."

Filzmaier said the neighborhood has provided Seminole with more than $2.25-million in property taxes since being annexed. The city, she said, should have done the drainage study before the annexation and, if it was unwilling to pay for repairs, should not have annexed the property.

The golf course, she said, is willing to provide an easement to the city: "Get the easement and start laying pipe."

Also unhappy were other Seminole Lakes residents who wondered why the study concentrated only on Augusta Road and the golf course. Flooding occurs elsewhere in the subdivision, they said, and the city should have evaluated the entire area.

Les Milewski of St. Andrews Drive said, "We're flooding just as bad as they are."

And Craig Fehr, who lives on Augusta, said he hopes the city will come up with a plan to fix the situation as soon as possible.

"We're in the middle of hurricane season, and time is of the essence," he said.

[Last modified July 11, 2006, 23:01:00]