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Temporary ideas needed to ease flooding problem

Last year Pinellas County engineers announced a new project they felt would reduce flooding that has plagued the Tarpon Woods subdivision in East Lake for many years.

The project involved laying a pipe thousands of feet through the subdivision to collect water and dump it out of harm's way.

Residents were hopeful that the project would eliminate the long waiting periods for water to recede after rainstorms - water that got so deep and drained so slowly that the U.S. Postal Service wouldn't even deliver residents' mail. Residents had to park their cars on high ground and wade from their homes to their cars to get out of the neighborhood.

The photograph on this page is proof the fix didn't work. Just over a week ago, Tarpon Woods was still under several inches of water long after other areas had dried up after a heavy rainstorm.

This is what happens when construction is allowed in an area that naturally holds water, and then the construction proceeds without authorities requiring a state-of-the-art drainage system that can remove what Mother Nature drops.

However, that mistake by permitting authorities years ago is water under the bridge. Current Pinellas County officials are left to manage the problem, and although they have spent millions trying, nothing has eliminated the standing water.

Residents aren't appeased when officials blame part of the problem on development elsewhere in North Pinellas and North Hillsborough that leaves less open area where stormwater can be absorbed into the ground and leads to high flows in Brooker Creek. That explanation does nothing to fix the flooded streets in front of their homes.

Tarpon Woods residents are discouraged, and none more than Phil Hamilton, a retiree who spent much of his life working in the Public Works departments of area cities and claims to know a lot about drainage. He says the county didn't do the pipe project correctly last year, and he is further offended that county officials won't listen to his suggestions.

Tarpon Woods residents pay their taxes and are not being unreasonable when they demand that the county deliver solutions. The entire Brooker Creek Watershed is now under study by the county and the Southwest Florida Water Management District. Perhaps that study, which should be finished soon, will provide some new understanding of how water flows in the area and how it can be safely redistributed - if it can - without harming the environment.

In the meantime, it wouldn't hurt the county to consider other temporary solutions, even those offered by people who have the most to lose to the continued flooding: those who live there.

[Last modified October 4, 2006, 06:53:09]