Waterfront Property Southeast Spokane Neighborhoods With Poor Drainage Get Flooded By Stormwater During Light Rains

Dean and Carrie Capaul were out celebrating with friends when nature struck.

Runoff from a New Year’s Eve storm inundated their Moran Prairie neighborhood, flooding the streets and yards. As the night wore on, water spilled into the Capauls’ basement.

When it was over, an indoor pool four feet deep covered the carpets, furniture and furnace. They went without heat for days.

“How do you get rid of all that water once you have it?” Carrie Capaul said. “It was miserable.”

The Capauls aren’t alone.

Across a wide swath of fast-growing southeast Spokane, stormwater has become a recurring nightmare, and the problem isn’t going away soon.

Development has aggravated the flooding and county officials say it will take millions of dollars for an adequate stormwater system to handle the overflows.

This comes after many homeowners bought their properties under the assumption the county, the developers or their engineers had designed the new neighborhoods to weather routine storms.

Now, residents say property values have dropped in the most troubled subdivisions.

If a new stormwater sewer system is built, property owners who benefit from it can look forward to utility surcharges for years to come.

“We are talking about a lot of money,” said Gisela McMullin, who owns a new home near 57th and Freya and is frustrated by the frequent flooding.

The county is preparing a lawsuit against the developer of the subdivision where she lives for failing to install adequate stormwater controls, said Bruce Rawls, manager of county utilities.

McMullin said she hopes the county can find a short-term fix, but building a workable stormwater system may be the real answer to keep property values from going dry.

Residents and county officials said real estate agents often don’t talk about the risk of stormwater problems when they show homes.

“It’s buyer beware,” Rawls said.

In some ways, the problem is as simple as the rain itself. When it falls, it has to go somewhere.

In southeast Spokane, the soils are shallow and packed with clay, so they don’t absorb water very well.

Making it worse, the groundwater is just below the surface in some areas, and that limits how much water can go into the ground. One study showed the water table is two to four feet below the surface at a site near South Regal on the Palouse Highway.

Here, the natural drainage is slowed by shallow depressions and broad flat fields.

South of Ferris High School, the storm runoff forms small ponds, washes across parking lots and often covers some streets.

Higher up on Browne Mountain, storms unleash torrents across streets and yards. The fast-moving runoff rips out curbs and landscaping. Homes and basements are damaged, and many homeowners have sump pumps or special “French drains” to divert water from their foundations.

Joel Lassman, who lives on Glennaire Drive, said flooding took out one retaining wall and damaged two others in his yard. He put down a berm of pea gravel to protect his home.

He is talking with a lawyer about legal action against the developer, he said.

“Someone needs to be held accountable,” Lassman said.

From Browne Mountain, the runoff spills out of drainage ditches onto the prairies below.

The base of Browne Mountain is dotted with fields that for years have been intermittent wetlands.

“Much of this area used to be a swamp,” said Rawls.

Now, those old swamps sprout homes. Where open land once absorbed water, hard surfaces send it down the street.

As a result, urban floods that could have occurred every 50 years or so are happening over and over.

These are many problem spots:

At Ashton Heights near 50th and Rebecca, so much water is coming off apartments and homes that the owners had to build a fence to prevent children from going into the stormwater retention ponds.

Ewell’s Addition near 57th Avenue has ponds built by the developers that are full.

The new post office at 55th and Regal frequently has water in the parking lot because the retention areas are insufficient to handle it all.

At Glenrose and Havana, water during high runoff gushes out of the drainage ditch and into the intersection.

Residents said their problems became apparent during a series of thunderstorms in July 1995. Near-record precipitation last year kept floods coming.

Now, any prolonged freeze sets the stage for floods because rock-hard ground simply sheds rain and snow melt.

It’s easy to blame developers for not putting enough money into stormwater systems. It’s also easy to point the finger at the county for failing to require more costly stormwater systems when developments are approved.

Some county staff members recommended stormwater sewers on Browne Mountain when the development began in the 1970s, said Brenda Sims, stormwater utility manager.

The city of Spokane is served by storm sewers.

The county approved the subdivisions without storm sewers. As construction progressed up the mountain, the problem simply got out of hand, officials and residents said.

County planners now require new developments to manage stormwater on their property.

Developers install pipes, catch basins, dry wells, drainage ditches, side-yard pools or large retention ponds. Often, those systems don’t work as planned, or there is more runoff than anticipated, Sims and Rawls said.

Developers said they are willing to handle water on their properties, but they can’t be blamed for water coming from above them.

Frank Etter, an investor in the development of the subdivision where McMullin lives, said his housing tract is being blamed for flooding even though the runoff comes from land up the slope.

“They need a storm system up there. That’s the bottom line,” Etter said.

County officials acknowledge more should have been done when growth picked up in southeast Spokane, but pressure from owners to exercise their private-property rights is tough to fight.

“It’s a real thorny dilemma,” said utility director Rawls.

On one hand, the county doesn’t want to prohibit growth, because it’s a significant contributor to the local economy.

At the same time, Rawls said the county can’t allow the problem to get so bad that people are suffering damage or their safety is threatened.

In the middle ground, there are only so many restrictions the county can impose on new developments, he said.

Still, some proposed developments have been turned down because of stormwater problems.

“Prevention is never an easy sell,” said Sims.

Other counties have experienced the same problem, she said.

Their history shows that it takes a moderate density of homes to aggravate the runoff problem, which then triggers a public outcry.

It’s the outcry that stimulates action and ultimately a solution, she said.

That is happening in southeast Spokane now.

Unfortunately, existing developments have partly blocked the watershed’s natural drainage system, so that will increase the cost of easements and diversion pipes, Sims said.

The stormwater management division is studying both long-term and short-term solutions under a Glenrose watershed plan.

Rawls and Sims said state and federal grants are not available for storm sewers.

Local ratepayers or property owners would likely shoulder the burden.

“We can solve the problem up there if people want to pay for it,” Rawls said.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 4 color photos Map of area.

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: STORMWATER SOLUTION? The solution to southeast Spokane’s stormwater problems may lie in an old gravel pit miles from the source of the problem. County officials said a pit at 8th and Carnahan could be turned into a settling pond for stormwater flowing from Browne Mountain and the prairies surrounding it. Diversion pipes and channels could be dug to direct runoff from the Glenrose watershed downhill to the ponds. Collection pipes could be laid beneath residential streets and arterials. The county might also develop playfields along gently sloping low spots. Those could double as holding areas for excess runoff during storms. A pre-treatment facility would be built just above the settling pond to remove any pollutants like oil and other chemicals. Then, the water could be allowed to percolate harmlessly back into the aquifer. There are no estimates of the cost yet, but county officials said it would be in the millions of dollars. Public workshops are expected later this spring and again in early autumn. The dates will be announced later.