Several Chapman Street residents and property owners attended a Sept. 1 meeting of the Damariscotta Board of Selectmen to express their frustration with the worsening drainage situation on their land.
Town Manager Greg Zinser recently toured the area between Bus. Rt. 1 and Chapman Street. “You can’t step two feet into their backyard without starting to sink,” Zinser said.
“That area handles drainage for a very large swath of town,” Zinser said. “It’s just a low area.”
Thanks to the increasing sogginess and standing water in some places, residents’ lawns are “unmowable,” Zinser said.
The likely culprit, Zinser said, is an inefficient culvert under the Coastal Marketplace parking lot. The culvert is “in its last stages” and blocked with debris, he said.
Standing water in the area “could begin to become a health hazard,” Zinser said, and the situation hurts property values.
Dennis Farrin, a Chapman Street resident, said he has “a basement full of water.”
Farrin also complained that Hagar Enterprises Inc., the town’s snow removal contractor, exacerbated the problem by dumping “tons of snow” in the area last winter.
A “plugged” culvert on Church Street between Cottage Garden Center and the Wheeler building also contributes to the problem, Farrin said. Zinser agreed to inspect the culvert.
Selectmen and residents said other problems might contribute to the accumulation of water in the area, including a damaged or incorrectly installed water pipe or a spring.
“We’ve only had about three rain storms this summer,” Selectman Vicki Pinkham said. “It’s been very, very dry.”
Damariscotta will work with the Great Salt Bay Sanitary District to determine if there is damage to water pipes in the area, Zinser said.
Selectmen unanimously voted to authorize Zinser to hire a surveyor and research the issue. Zinser said he would speak to the owner of Coastal Marketplace about the problematic culvert.
“I don’t think we’re talking a huge sum of money to get this basic data,” Zinser said.
Damariscotta must resolve the drainage issues before the town can build sidewalks along Rt. 1B, Zinser said. “We’re not going to let the construction begin until we have a solution.”
Forrest Hunt, another homeowner on Chapman Street, said the source of the water is insignificant. “Either way, the water there should run off,” he said.
Hunt invited the selectmen to tour the area and encouraged them to address the issue soon. Any necessary excavation in the area will need to take place in the winter when the ground is frozen, Hunt said.
Hunt and his wife, Karen, have lived at 15 Chapman St. for 18 years. Hunt first brought his concerns to the town 10-12 years ago, he said, but the problem worsened dramatically this year. Now their neighbors, like Farrin, who lives next door, run sump pumps 24 hours a day just to keep their basements from flooding.
Hunt swapped his sneakers for rubber boots before an hour-long tour of the area Thursday afternoon, Sept. 2. Hunt’s backyard is nearly impossible to navigate without boots, and it’s not easy with them. Grass, reeds and other vegetation grow higher than Hunt’s head in places, and he can only mow a narrow strip of the lawn.
The vast majority of Hunt’s backyard, including two outbuildings on the site, is useless due to the moisture, a fact the town has recognized by lowering the assessment of the area.
After fighting the weeds on his property, Hunt drove to Coastal Marketplace to point out the standing water on both sides of the long culvert that runs underneath the parking lot, from the open area beside the Dollar Tree Store to the bushes behind Camden National Bank.
The area between the bank and Bus. Rt. 1 resembles a swamp, and the culvert that runs across the street toward the Mobius building also appeared ineffective. Hunt said he could fix the problem himself with a backhoe, a threat he made jokingly at the selectmen’s meeting, but “They won’t let you do anything.”
Contractors will need to “re-ditch” and “clean out” the stream and clear or replace the culverts in order to correct the problem, Hunt said. Although Coastal Marketplace will likely have to pay for the culvert under their parking lot, whatever cost the town might incur will pay for itself, Hunt said.
“It’s going to increase the value of this property,” he said, and higher values, of course, will result in more tax revenue.
