Avenue not pleasant for flooded home owners

Two things can be said of water: it always heads for the lowest
spot, and it always follows the path of least resistance to get
there.
Last Monday, water flowing out of vineyards east of Mattie
Washburn Elemen-tary School cut through properties on the north
side of Pleasant Avenue, surged along roadside ditches too small to
handle the flow, angled across property at the corner of Pleasant
Avenue and Emmerson Street, romped past sodden sandbags only
partially succeeding at keeping seeping water out of low-lying
buildings, and surged out onto Emmerson Street, heading for a storm
drain a block to the south.
Even during heavy rains it was not always this way according to
Anne Loehr, owner of the two acres at the corner of Pleasant and
Emmerson.
“Two or three years ago it got really bad,” said Loehr. “Last
winter it was four or five inches deep all over my daughter’s
house.”
Two houses and a large garage sit on the Loehr property. The
house where Anne’s daughter Rebecca lives sits on a concrete slab
and is at the mercy of rising water.
“We had to hire someone to remove the carpet, and put all the
furniture in storage for awhile last winter,” said Rebecca.
On Monday, water was again seeping into the house and Rebecca
had once again pulled back the carpet, exposing the wet concrete
below.
The Loehrs believe the worsening conditions are the result of
land development to the northeast of their property.
“The county allowed them to pull out a big walnut grove and put
in massive vineyards up there,” said Anne.
“They put in a street and a culvert that diverts all the water
to Pleasant Avenue,” said Rebecca. “It’s just not sufficient to
handle a huge mountain of runoff like this.”
Anne fears there may be another problem. “It’s going across a
bunch of land with wells and septic systems, and then going into
storm drains,” she said as she stood in her yard with water flowing
around her rubber gum boots. “Who knows what kind of contamination
we’re getting here?”
The Loehrs have one pressing question for which they say they
have not been able to get an answer: which government agency has
the responsibility to work on a solution to the problem? Is it
Sonoma County or the town of Windsor?
One reason for the uncertainty is that the Loehr property, and
other nearby parcels, are outside the current town limits, but
inside the towns formally-adopted “sphere of influence.” The water
flows from rural county land across the sphere of influence and
into storm drains within the town limits. So who is responsible
when there’s a flood?
Paul Wade, acting public works director and engineer for the
town of Windsor, said the town is responsible if water is backing
up above its storm drains. It is Wade’s understanding, however,
that the flooding problem along Pleasant Avenue is caused by an
influx of water flowing from higher ground outside the town limits.
In that case, he said, it is the county that is responsible.
The town’s storm drains near the Loehr property were indeed
flowing freely during the Monday storm, and were not causing water
to back up onto nearby land.
Windsor Street Maintenance Supervisor Jan Pieraccini said the
town’s policy is to supply sandbags to home owners whose living
quarters are in imminent danger of flooding. “But even the best
drainage systems can’t keep up with a storm like we had yesterday,”
she said. “There were problems all over the county.”
Loehr confirmed that public works employees from the town
provided sand bags on Monday.
Pieraccini said it is her responsibility to deal with problems
within the town limits. “But I have no control over what goes on
upstream,” she said.
Both Wade and Pieraccini said the sphere of influence
designation does not create increased responsibilities for the
town. “The sphere of influence only means that that land is subject
to annexation in the future,” said Wade. “It’s still in the
county.”
Anne Loehr said county officials have told her clearly that it
is the town’s responsibility to solve the flooding problem. “It’s a
lovely spot to be in when nobody wants to take any responsibility
for this,” she said.
Multiple calls to county staff went unreturned Tuesday morning
as the Times attempted to contact the Sonoma County Transportation
and Public Works Department and the Permit and Resource Management
Department before going to press.
Town of Windsor staff expressed sympathy for their counterparts
in the county, saying they were probably overwhelmed with calls as
a result of the storm that continued at press time.