CARRINGTON, ST CHARLES/WALDORF: Significant portions of Waldorf’s Carrington neighborhood have been masquerading as wetlands; complete with enough mosquitoes to feed any biblically proportioned plague of frogs happening to pass by.
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photos courtesy of Charles County Department of Planning |
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Residents have been dealing with this swamp for more than a decade and they’ve had quite enough, thank you. Mrs. Ivy Turner (a seventeen year Carrington resident) told the Bay Net that her back yard “hasn’t been dry for three years now; your shoes sink deep into the ground. And, the erosion is awful. All the land looks like it’s sinking toward the creek.”
When residents first tried to get the drainage problems resolved, they had an awful time just sorting out who was responsible for the system.
“We kept getting tossed about,” said Mrs. Turner. “The County said the State [was responsible]; the State said the City.” They finally convinced the ‘City’ (the Smallwood Village Association) to do something. The SVA compiled a detailed report of the trouble spots in 1995, but nothing was repaired.
Last summer, a group of frustrated residents formally requested that Charles County intervene. This last week, Bob Harrington of the Development Services Division within the county’s Department of Planning & Growth Management presented the results of the Division’s research and their recommendations for county action.
The hottest weeks of August 2006 found Harrington tromping through marshy backyards, peering into storm drains and climbing up drainage ditches to note and photograph trouble spots. The findings estimate $150,000 worth of repairs to drainage components in public areas and more than $260,000 worth of repairs to items on privately property.
How did Carrington’s drainage system get into this state of disrepair? The neighborhood is one of the oldest planned communities in the area so many problems are simply a matter of age. “Most pipes are in good shape,” Harrington told the Commissioners, the system’s just old and hasn’t been properly maintained. Common age related problems are sinking and crumbling concrete, partially closed drain access points due to street repaving and silt choked gutters/drains.
Board of Commissioners Vice-President Edith Patterson asked Harrington why so little had been done to maintain the system and fix problems through the years. Harrington credited the situation to the lack of a Carrington Home Owners’ Association. Nearly every other sub-division in the county has a homeowners association which maintains water/sewer systems in community areas and polices the system for potential problems caused by residents.
When a new neighborhood is built, developers now place the utilities systems on and under easements between and surrounding the lots. These lands are given to the county who gives them to the neighborhood’s HOA when it’s formed. The HOA maintains the areas and systems through annual assessments to its homeowners.
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