BELFAST, Maine — A woman whose backyard is bounded by a stream she claims the city has created and increased in size remains locked in conflict with city hall.
Laurie Allen of Seaview Terrace, a street that intersects Northport Avenue near Waldo County General Hospital, can be seen on some weekends carrying placards through the downtown that read “Belfast Bullies.” She maintains a blog on the issue and is a frequent speaker at City Council meetings, claiming the council is conspiring against her as she fights to keep her home dry and her backyard intact.
City officials maintain that the water flow, seen especially during rainy spells such as the area has experienced in the last few weeks, is part of the natural and managed drainage. Much of the city is built on a hill that pitches east to Penobscot Bay.
For Allen, the saga began last year. In June 2010, she purchased the house after a divorce, moving to Belfast from New Jersey. Last spring the stream behind her split-level ranch house filled.
“That was when it came gushing over the banks,” she said last week.
Except as far as Allen is concerned, it’s not a stream. The trench through which the water flows along her backyard was created when the flow was diverted, Allen said, when the Seaview Terrace subdivision was built in 1965. The natural drainage probably followed a course to the south of its current course, she said.
This is a point on which city officials and Allen agree. City Planner Wayne Marshall said aerial photos of the city from 1939 and 1957 show the stream, though it is likely that it was to the south of its current course.
But the city maintains that it has no responsibility to fix the problem. The subdivision, built as it was under the laws of the day, was legal and approved.
On Thursday, May 10, after a couple of days of heavy rain, Allen showed where the stream flowed, noting especially how the bank closest to her house had begun eroding. Her property line lies on the opposite bank of the stream, she said, pointing to a survey stake.
“I probably lost 4 to 5 feet of property,” she said.
Allen asserts that water has plagued the neighborhood for years, in both backyards and on the street side. Marshall confirms that in 1987, at the request of residents, the city engineer completed a report that examined the problem. It concluded the city was not on the hook for any fix.
Allen also notes that in subsequent years, major new building developments have added to runoff. They include the Captain Albert Stevens School, a townhouse development on Cedar Street, the Volunteers of America senior housing complex on Congress Street, a new hospital complex on the west side of Northport Avenue, and expansions of the Tall Pines nursing home and Mid-Coast Mental Health facility, both adjacent to Seaview Terrace.
At the top of Seaview Terrace is a culvert, about 40 inches in diameter, which feeds the trench that flows past Allen’s house. A gravel bank prevents water from flowing farther south and instead diverts it east toward the bay. Allen wants that gravel bank removed.
“I’ve asked for the full history of Seaview Terrace and the flooding,” Allen said. She said she has been stonewalled by city officials, a charge Marshall denies.
Allen said she worked behind the scenes to help city officials find a practical solution to the problem before going public with her complaints, beginning at a council meeting in November.
Some of Allen’s neighbors have grown tired of her activism, though. Bud Hand spoke at a recent council meeting asking the city to dissuade Allen from posting signs on her property complaining about her water problem.
The city’s position, said Marshall, is: “That is an active stream behind her property and it is part of a major drainage basin” for the area. When each new development in the area was built, he said, measures were taken to meet state and local regulations to hold back water from major storms.
And finally, Marshall said, the city can’t fix problems on private property.
Allen believes a fix to the water woes would cost her at least $45,000.
“If you’re not getting services from your city, where do you turn?” she asked.
I have lived here all my life, and I think she is justified in her assumptions. The rt. 1 bypass probably did not help matters. “If you’re not getting services from your city, where do you turn?” she asked. All of us poor folks on the East side of Belfast have been asking the same question for generations.
When you can make water run uphill on its own, let me know. Natures way is to make it flow where it wants to go, down toward the lowest point. Everyone deals with drainage issues on their property every so often, which may be be more often here the next few days.
Capillary action, and pressure will make water go up. :D.
Plants use capillary action to draw water up from the ground, and we use water pressure to get water up into our houses without electricity for our indoor plumbing. ;)
Yeah, but they do things different in Jersey.
Have you ever lived there?
Nope, never have. Never will. Can’t say I even want to go to Jersey to be honest.
Have seen and heard many people from New Jersey and New York complaining about how we live in Maine, but that doesn’t stop them from moving here and trying to change us so we’re just as miserable as the place they moved here from.
You bought it.
It was her responsibility to figure this out before she bought her house. I recently bought a house that I knew had drainage issues from the village paving the road in front of my house. I have to deal with it and actually, that is the best way to get it fixed.
Sorry Laurie, you are on your own…buyer beware! Seller should have disclosed and you can try and go after the seller…I think though, that your time to try that has come and gone.
Belfast has done this all along…
…since 1965.
She has only lived here since June 2010, correct? That means she has only experienced one spring in Belfast. Spring in Maine is very wet. I would recommend doing your homework before you move into a home with a stream in the back yard.
Also, an offer was made to her to repair her bank. It would have cost her nothing, and the organization offering to fix it would have picked up the cost of a few thousand dollars. She turned it down. She wants $45,000 to $85,000. It turns out this woman is unemployed and has no intention of finding a job. She is trying to live off the taxpayers of Belfast. She considers protesting this stream-problem her job. As the governor said (and I am no supporter of the governor), “Get off the couch and find a job!”
I think it’s beautiful. I wouldn’t mind having it in my back yard. It looks like the erosion may be under control now too. I would dress it up with a cute little water wheel and whatever else comes to mind.
Try doing anything to beautify it and they will get you for something
sorry repeated itself.
I agree with common_since. It is beautiful. I would dress it up with flowers, and maybe build a little wooden bridge across it. Instead of whining and complaining, which will probably not get you any place, and make enemies along the way. Make it into something you can enjoy. I don’t mind people from out of state moving to Maine, but why does it seem that those are the ones that do a lot of the complaining, and whining. I am sure you got a lot for your money in Maine compared to where you came from. Just my opinion.
Agree! Spoken like a true native!
Anyone who purchases a piece of property with a stream or major stormwater drainage flowing across it really has no business complaining about naturally occurring erosion and increased surface flows during significant rain events.
If you don’t like water, purchase land at the top of the hill and leave the rest of us alone with your inane, public whining…
Lots of common sense Mainer comments here. This sort of whining must be more commonplace in New Jersey.
My understanding of land use law in Maine is you can do whatever you want with water while it is on your property: make an interesting serpentine stream, a pond feature, a mini waterfalls, etc. but once you send it OFF your property you become responsible for what it does to your neighbor.
Belfast city does not hold to this common law? I would suggest to Ms. Allen that she be a little creative (with a lawyer’s advice, as well as a landscaper’s…) and divert that torrent onto city property, oh, I don’t know–across the road surface? or under a crosswalk? or maybe even onto hospital property… Drill a hole and dump it down there, until it comes up who knows where? They have been doing it to her, so it must be OK, right?
Somehow, I think that might get their attention. I would be angry too–and “have an attitude”–if I got stonewalled by bureaucrats for what seems obviously the city’s doing, going back decades.
I don’t care if the current city planner was not even born when that occurred. You are the planner, council member, mayor NOW in 2012, so solve the problem the city is causing!
City won’t do it. Do it yourself. Good luck staying out of a mental hospital.
If it’s a stream, you can’t alter it without a good reason and a heavy-duty permit from the DEP, and possibly another one from the Army Corps of Engineers.
If it’s a drainage ditch, have a ball.
Absolutely not true. I had property in Belfast with a natural spring that seeped up at the back and ran as a stream through the property, under the road through a huge culvert and down through the adjacent field to the river. In very dry years it ran little, but in wet ones it ran full all year long. At one time spring water was sold from the site so we know it was NOT a drainage ditch.
The year before we moved, two homes were built in the field, one right across the stream bed. (it was a dry year) After we moved they built a house in what had been our back yard, right over the spring head. It really made me mad at the time, but as they say, “time wounds all heels” so I am just kinda sitting back now and wondering, considering the very wet spring this year, how many sump pumps those folks are running.
So it is not entirely true that you can’t, as it was very clearly done in these three instances.
As for this lady…there was an obvious channel on the property. Its not like she didn’t see it. As posted earlier; buyer beware. She really needs to get over trying to blame others for her mistake.
My mistake – I should have said you can’t LEGALLY alter it without all those permits, and it also has to meet the DEP’s definition of a stream and/or the Army Corps’ definition, which are not necessarily the same as your definition or even the same as each other for that matter. People do illegal stuff all the time. Sometimes they get caught, sometimes they don’t. The DEP only has a few people to keep tabs on that kind of thing, and if the local code officer doesn’t report it and no one complains, they’ll never find out intil it’s too late to do anything about it. That’s probably what happened in your old back yard.
as it’s your property……use some dynamite…..
Who do you turn to? I suggest you make a left hand turn at Exit 109 in Augusta and drive back south to Jersey. If not, learn how to fish. This is about a silly as saying “There’s a tree in my backyard that has been there since 1947 and it’s blocking the sun. My taxpaying neighbors should remove it!”
I wish I had a stream in my back yard! Advertise as ‘on the water’ and sell it.
Stocking it with Brook Trout would help with the sale too. Moving back to Jersey would be your best bet. No sympathy here from these Mainers.
What kind of trout would you stock it with an would the state say ?
you cant stock a stream they just swim out the end. but she could dump a load or two of gravel into it and watch it back up in her cranky neighbors yard.
This is why you get a surveyor and a home inspector and anyone else you possibly can to review buildings and land before you make a purchase. Sounds like this lady is blaming her short-comings as a home buyer on the town of Belfast. Seems pretty foolish to me.
Line the bank with rocks this summer when the water is low. A couple of dump truck loads should do it. Check concrete companies. They have plenty of rock they would be happy to sell, and it wouldn’t cost more than a few hundred bucks. Or I could do it for you for a discount, say $44,495
really?
you don’t think that the stream will just come back around when it “passes” the wall?
Not a “wall” but line the banks to stop the erosion.
thank you
what wall are you talking about? I’m talking about a layer of rock from the low part to the high point of the bank to stop erosion.
Buyer beware, I agree, do your homework before buying a property and don’t expect a city to suddenly get up and do something for you…….
If you don’t like the smell of a farm, don’t by a house next to a farm.
I also have to agree, I would like a stream in my yard, and could imagine how fun that could be.
Like someone else said, she could always say it’s on the water and see how fast it sells, and what it could be sold for.
Some water problems they don’t notice, realize or care when designing and constructing things. I know someone who has lived somewhere for years. They have something to complain about. A road near them got paved recently. Now the street drains on them, and the end of the street is covered with water, except for the sidewalk, and kids are dropped off from the bus into that water after school.
The city will not do anything for them, their now eroding yard, and their now dying tree. It looks to me like the grass, which is great at absorbing water, but doesn’t like water as much as dandelions, and clovers is keeping the water on the street, and those people need a ditch to separate them from the road that is no longer lower then them, but suddenly higher than them and draining on them.
Dirt to the side of the road at the end of that road and an off road ditch may help, but in cases the water creates another ditch off the the side of the road instead of using the intended ditched, because the side of the road has dirt and grass is growing next to the dirt before the intended ditch, which is blocking water from that intended ditch.
By the way, it is hard to run in those narrow ditches off the side of the road and in cases there is no breakdown lane……..
Some places do not realize or care, or know what to do about the damage until years later, even though they build a bigger bridge every year because of increasing water levels, or they never realize or care what they are doing to neighborhoods, and those who notice subtle changes over the years must be crazy.
You would have to be a bit dense not to have noticed water or a very large drainage bed before you purchased the property…unless the net fencing was blocking it from your view, but then again who would purchase property where there’s fence dividing your property?
According to the article, she bought the house in June. We can have some very low flows in June. If she was from away, and not familiar with the area, it’s easy to see how she wouldn’t have known the potential for runooff in her stream during high waters. Also, if recent developments have increased flows substantially, it’s possible that these problems didn’t exist when her house was purchased.
Can you say flood insurance? Maybe she should’ve thought of that before purchasing so close to a drainage swail, river, whatever it is, running by her home place.
Flooding is not her problem, eroding property is. Flood insurance doesn’t pay for loss due to erosion.
Maybe she could get a grant for some kind of storm water run-off hydro power project!
The way the photo shows a really strong current, a hydro project makes sense and with everything being paved over, the flow is a better source of power than an unpredictable breeze for a windmill! :-/
I can’t tell if you were serious with this comment or not, but if you were, FYI, it would be nearly impossible to do that legally.
No, I was being sarcastic. What isn’t impossible to do legally? Every morning we get out of bed, we’re on our way to breaking some law.
Ms. Allen- here in Maine- our streams- even the smallest- grow to overflowing monsters in the Spring. I am sure the erosion is a problem, however not a problem of the town of Belfast.
Makes sense to most of us who have experienced life in Maine. They must do things different in Jersey.
I’ve seen streams in Jersey. There’s barely any noticable water and what there is is stagnant and covered with orange goo. There were signs posted next to them warning people to stay away.
Why doesn’t she just build up a little levee in the back and get on with a normal life?
‘Cause she’s from Joisy. They are a strange people for Mainers (even New Yorkers) to understand.
Or maybe she’s still cranked up from the divorce. :)
She can post all the signs she wants – it is freedom of speech. She is correct that the problem is manmade: “… in subsequent years, major new building developments have added to runoff. They include the Captain Albert Stevens School, a townhouse development on Cedar Street, the Volunteers of America senior housing complex on Congress Street, a new hospital complex on the west side of Northport Avenue, and expansions of the Tall Pines nursing home and Mid-Coast Mental Health facility, both adjacent to Seaview Terrace.”
One would think that the city would not allow further use of the stream for manufactured runoff.
It’s strange all the posts here by people who seem to have not RTFA. It’s clear that the increase in runoff is a result of projects the city has given permits to.
So the city IS responsible for the problem.
City officials need to do their job, what she’s asking for isn’t unreasonable at all – she can take the city to court and no doubt win.
And posters here making the go back to jersey remarks are an embarrassment to all Mainers.
It seems that the city could put in a few rocks and make sure the erosion doesn’t continue. Wouldn’t that make sense? There seem to be some really hateful people on here. Why not get together ……..gather some rocks and stop the erosion. I would call that “team work.”
The problem is, she can’t do anything like that without permits from DEP for riprapping a stream. She’s right, it would cost a lot of money. The increased erosion is due to enhanced development, and the city should have made the developers mitigate. They could have set up a fund for things like downstream mitigation at a later time. The City should do something, but they don’t want to, since, as I mentioned, they would have to go through the DEP permitting process and shell out money.
I have to agree with you RoostookGuy–reading these comments telling her to go back to Jersey is embarrassing and ignorant as well–hard to believe a true Mainer would stoop that low.
The drainage has not changed in the ten months since she moved in. Buyer beware.
Under State law and Belfast ordinances, all of these new development projects were required to conduct extensive drainage studies and to install detention ponds or mitigation so that peak runoff after the development does not increase beyond what was there before the development. This property owner has voiced many “conspiracy theories” about City officials that are out to get her and has taken hours at public City Council meetings hogging the agenda and spewing forth venom. The BDN does the City a disservice by giving this woman yet another forum to vent her accusations. She bought a property by a drainage path that has existed for decades and now she wants the other taxpayers to “fix it” for her? It is painful to listen to her go on and on and on at Council meetings when the rest of the taxpayers have other issues that must be addressed………
Very well said…Thank you…
Go back to Jersy?
Myself, I’d want to tent out next to it just to hear the water flowing, the bugs aren’t bad in Belfast…..maybe they are next to her lot though!
Looks too big to build a trout pond/spillway. DEP couldn’t let her do that anyway.
New Jersey girl, why don’t you settle down, Belfast can’t be your kind or town, there ain’t no gold ……
she doesnt like it get out then
time to tax her for waterfront property.. go back
Buyer beware…
I say Go Green Baby….harness some of that renewable energy with a DIY Hydro Electric Generator and make your own electricity when the water is flowing.
Did this lady think a stream in her backyard would never overflow with heavy rains? Come on lady, get real.
What I do not understand is why people from New Jersey and New York move here if they hate it so much???? Why bring all that hate and discontent with you when you move here? If you hate it so, then consider moving “away”.
There was information left out of this report. When Miss Allen purchased this property she was not aware of the stream. It was frozen over and covered in snow when she looked at it and it was not disclosed in the paperwork from the realestate company she purchased through. (she did all this from away) I also want to mentiont that the city claims they can not do work on private property yet the city went through and dug a drainage ditch to drain water from behind the two houses across from her…on private propert. So before you Mainers wo make the “From away” spitefull comments get too excited, do some research before passing judgment. Your just making yourselves look ignorant.
Again then go back to the real estate company and leave the city alone:) Who the heck buys a house before seeing it?
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The damage to the stream has been perpetuated by Ms. Allen’s actions…those who lived in that house before her had no issues with it. It was not until she yanked the vegetation from the streambed that she began to have issues. The erosion is a direct result of Ms. Allen’s damage to the stream bank and bed…
Or the city folks who move in next door to a farm and start complaining about the smell of the cows and the crowing of the roosters.
Laurie, there’s some good advice mixed in here. Forget the out-of-stater haters. As soon as you can, plant good hardy buffer plants and shrubs, ask qualified people what you yourself can do to minimize erosion. Make friends with JUNKER207 whose comment below tells it like it is.
If she had left the stream bank/bed alone, she wouldn’t have had this issue in the first place…She has caused the issue and is trying to scapegoat the blame onto everyone but herself.
….
our stream to is getting bigger with age, and eroding our property..we were told we could bet big rocks/boulders put them on the edge of property and let them fall into the stream when it rains/erodes, and hopefully turn it away from us..but to get trucks down to our backyard with large boulders would do good damage to the yard..but that could be fixed..and ours started when they did the construction on the dirt road up behind us..you could barely ever see water in ours..now we have rapids..lol
Put in a small pelton wheel / generator and you have free electricty – boy would I like to have such a resource in my backyard. It looks contained….Harness it – if only for part of the year.
wish I knew how to do that..lol
I cannot provide legal advice or interpretation of Maine law to the public. If you need legal advice, please consult a qualified attorney. Provided for reference only: Title 17: CRIMESChapter 91: NUISANCESSubchapter 3: PARTICULAR NUISANCES§2808. Alteration of surface water flowUnreasonable use of land that results in altered flow of surface water that unreasonably injures another’s land or that unreasonably interferes with the reasonable use of another’s land is a nuisance. [2005, c. 564, §1 (NEW); 2005, c. 564, §3 (AFF).]An action under this section must be commenced within 3 years after the cause of action accrues. [2005, c. 564, §1 (NEW);2005, c. 564, §3 (AFF).]SECTION HISTORY2005, c. 564, §1 (NEW). 2005, c. 564, §3 (AFF).
“…she purchased the house after a divorce, moving to Belfast from New Jersey.” Relevance?
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I would be compassionate if I didn’t know that she has caused this issue…not the city of Belfast. She has torn out all the vegetation along the stream, thereby creating her erosion problem. You don’t hear other people who live in that are complaining, nor did the former owners…
I am surprised she hasnt tried to sue the former owner for non-truth in disclosure. I am sure the former owner knew of it and just didnt bother to think it was a real problem.
The stream was not like that when the former owners were there. She tore out all the vegetation that supported it. She has caused her own issue and is suing this one and that one over an issue SHE has caused.
Grab a fishing rod, have a seat and shut up!
What is she complaining about, she has shore front property ………………
Someone needs to ask her why she tore all the vegetation out of the stream bank so she could put in a dog pen…There were no issues until she tore things apart. Funny the people who lived there before hand for ages never complained or had issues…
Just maybe it’s the increasingly paved over land that’s sending that rush of water through. She still didn’t do a thorough check before she bought, though. I did the same thing 30 years ago and later found out there was a right of way on the side. There’s a development of McMansions behind us now…
MyNameIsTaken is even more correct than he/she knows. Ms Allen removed all the vegetation next to her stream and installed the fence within a couple feet of the stream. She created her own problem, the erosion is 100% her own fault. That is why she is also suing Lowes, who installed the fence. In other words, she is admitting that the fault is a result of the fence. But she does not want people to know this. She also turned down an offer to fix her bank for free, but she is holding out for the $45,000-$85,000. She also has no job and considers protesting her job. She wants the city to pay her to shut up.
SHE created the problem. Pull out the vegetation that keeps the stream bed strong and viable,and what do you expect???? Her problem…no one else’s…
Oh come on BDN…My comment was agreat suggestion. Jump in and float back to the Garden State. I didnt break any of the “rules” just a suggestion. Use a flotation device. Safety 1st!