North Pulaski County Residents Going Under Water

Something stinks in Pulaski County and people near McAlmont say it`s the raw sewage washing around in their yards. People near Ink Bayou off Highway 161 say their land has been flooded for the past year and that it`s the county`s fault. Wanda and Kenny Turner say they knew this area was a floodplain, they`ve had problems for the last 20 years. But when the county started making improvements to another neighborhood, the water came in and never receded. "Since March of last year, this water has gone nowhere, out here in the yard, period," Wanda Turners said. The water already under the house gets pumped into the backyard, already saturated with water. "Our sewage tank is right here behind me and we can`t flush our commodes, we can`t wash our dished, we can`t wash our clothes," she says. The Turners say a new drainage ditch put in a nearby neighborhood is pushing more water onto the yard. "Last year the county put a drainage ditch on East 46th Street, on top of a big old hill to drain down on us," she said. After a study in 1998, the county did build drainage pipes there, in place of existing ditches. That water drains into Ink Bayou, just next to the Turner`s backyard. "The entire area is a flood plain for the most part," said C. Casche Carter, the county floodplain administrator. Carter says the pipes aren`t causing the flooding. "There are analyses done to indicate the pipes carry as much water as the ditch, so those analyses tell us we haven`t increased discharge into the bayou," Carter said. The work was completed in July of last year, just before the Turners noticed the water wasn`t going away. Officials say spreading land developments could contribute to the flooding, but they try to control that in the floodplains areas. "You`ve got beaver dams, pipe blockage, any number of things that could cause that, the best we can do is show that any improvments we`re trying to do aren`t increasing that water," said Carter. He said there are some things the Turners can do, like fill in some of the water with dirt. They`d just have to have the proper paperwork, to prove that filling in doesn`t wash the water onto someone else`s property. Another floodplain study is in progress for Pulaski County now, this one with the assistance of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. That study could better define or redefine the county`s flooplains. Carter says studying Ink Bayou and Bayou Meto is at the top of their list.