THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, February 24, 1995 TAG: 9502220108
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 12B EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PATRICIA HUANG, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 86 lines
There's water, water everywhere and not a proper ditch to drain it in, complained residents of rural Chesapeake before the City Council last month.
``It's difficult just getting your mail or putting your garbage out or for school kids getting on and off the bus,'' said Jay Mears of Shillelagh Road. ``The ditch fills to capacity, and there's nowhere for the water to go.''
Mears, who was addressing the Council at the January meeting, was speaking of the deep ditch that lines most of Shillelagh Road in front of his home off Dominion Boulevard. The approximately 6-foot-deep ditch along the narrow country road has been causing problems for years, neighbors said. And the mucky, still water attracts so many mosquitoes during the summer months that it's like living in the Florida Everglades, they said.
``I've been there since 1967, and it hasn't gotten any better,'' said Gerald Teeuwen, who also lives on the road. ``It needs a little attention. Soon, please. Thank you.''
City officials have long been aware of the problems of the narrow trench, said John O'Connor, director of public works. About two years ago, city engineers drafted three alternatives to reconstruct it but haven't had enough funding to begin work. The three alternatives they came up with were to move the ditch to the west of Shillelagh Road behind the houses, to the east of houses on the other side of the road, or further back from the road to create more of a shoulder that would flank the street's two traffic lanes.
The city is currently looking for more cost-effective ways to execute a reconstruction plan for the northern 1.5 mile stretch of Shillelagh Road that is estimated at $1.2 million, he said.
But local developer Robert S. Caroon, who filed a $1.2 million lawsuit against the city last December for flooding damages to his property, said the city's alternatives would cause him even more problems. The city already floods his land by directing its ditches in the surrounding area through his property to a ditch that is too shallow and narrow to accommodate it, he said.
Caroon, president of Caroon Industries, owns Shillelagh Farms subdivision and 800 acres of undeveloped land he hopes to build on. He sparked controversy last year when he proposed widening a city-owned ditch that borders the south side his property. Caroon offered to fund the project, which would provide drainage for the 11-square mile area which includes the Chesapeake Airport and his land.
Last July the city shot down the project, which would've excavated the existing two-mile-long ditch to 200 feet wide, when residents protested it, saying the dump trucks needed to carve out what the city called a borrow pit would disrupt traffic on the small country road.
The main reason for the Council's 7-1 vote against the project was because of the enormity of it, said Vice Mayor Arthur L. Dwyer.
A 200-foot-wide drainage ditch would be wider than a football field, big enough to float an aircraft carrier and nearly twice the width of the Panama Canal at its locks.
``Basically we felt that this was a glorified borrow pit,'' Dwyer said. ``Does drainage necessitate the size? . . . We have not been one to embrace borrow pits in this city.''
But supporters of the ditch widening said now is the perfect time to build a drainage system to accommodate the area.
If expansion of the airport, which borders the west side of Caroon's land, also runs more water towards his property, Caroon said, his already-halted plans for development will be ruined.
As for the size of the widening, he said, those are dimensions given to him by the city's Public Works Department.
``I thought (the size) extremely excessive myself until I started fighting the city and I found that come the big rains, (the land) gets all flooded out,'' said Caroon. He added that the proposal for the ditch calls for it to narrow from 200 feet to 120 feet wide on the other end. ``But this shouldn't be dug for just right now. This needs to be dug for 10, 15 years down the road. This is the best time to do it.''
The Planning Department and Public Works had recommended that Council accept the project last year.
``The bottom line was, any time we get a drainage improvement in this city, it's welcome as far as I'm concerned,'' O'Connor said. ``Especially if it's being paid for by a developer.''
But O'Connor said that last year his department also recommended widening the ditch on a smaller scale for the time being.
The city's alternatives for easing drainage problems on Shillelagh Road now, O'Connor said, should not negatively affect Caroon's property since the north end of the road drains north.
``If it drains on him, it's the way nature made it occur,'' he said. by CNB