Couple Says Project Causing Lake In Yard

Marge and Tom Bester hoped to turn the back yard of their home in Ridgemont Estates into a little oasis.

The couple planted fruit trees, a grape vine, berry bushes, flowers and grass, and Tom Bester erected a fine-looking wooden privacy fence.

“We worked so hard to make it nice for us,” said Marge Bester, who moved into the new home on South Sonora Drive last January.

But the Besters claim their oasis is being ruined by storm water running off two adjoining lots and flooding their yard.

“The last time we had a storm, we had a lake in our yard and a river running along our fence line,” Marge Bester said.

They blame the contractor who developed the other lots, Dan Brammer of Newman Lake, for causing the problems, and have had a running feud with him for the past six months.

“It’s awful, just awful,” Marge Bester said.

Brammer said he’s not to blame and said the Besters are being unreasonable.

“In the beginning, I lost some sleep over this one,” he said. “But then I thought, wait a minute, I’ve done nothing wrong here.”

Marge Bester disagreed.

She said Brammer raised the level of his two lots several feet by dumping dozens of loads of fill dirt on them.

One of the lots is indeed higher that the Besters’ yard.

That made her backyard the lowest point in the area - the place where rainwater drains to now, she said.

The Besters hired a private engineering firm to study the problem.

Joel G. Lee of Metro Engineering of Spokane looked at the three properties and issued a report in October siding with the Besters.

“From my site visit, it appears as if the fill material that was placed on these lots has caused additional runoff onto your lot,” Lee wrote in the report.

He suggested two ways to fix the problem: Dig a ditch all along the Besters fence line to route the runoff away from the Besters property or construct a drainage swale that would catch any runoff and keep it on Brammer’s lots.

Brammer said he built the swale between his two lots - a claim that Marge Bester disputes - and that a county building inspector approved the drainage plan. That could not be confirmed Tuesday.

“She needs to understand that she has rain coming off her house, too,” Brammer said. “If her water doesn’t make it to our swale, I don’t know what to do.”

Marge Bester said that was bunk.

“It’s everybody’s fault but his,” she said.

She said she and her husband are considering legal action against Brammer. “I realize this is just a construction project to him, but this is my home,” she said.

, DataTimes