'Nobody wants to be liable' of water runoff issues in Kennedale
KENNEDALE (CBSNewsTexas.com) – There was no pool, pond or water feature built into the backyard of John DeSilva's new home in Kennedale when he bought it, but when a waterfall appeared during the first heavy winter rain it was clear he had a problem.
During intense storms, the water will dump over a retaining wall, pooling up onto his patio and sidewalk. From his yard it runs under a fence, up against the home next door, and through two more properties, before it finds its way to Winding Creek, and eventually Lake Arlington.
Over the last eight years, DeSilva estimates he's spent as much as $10,000 on retaining walls, drainage systems, and pavement to divert the runoff, but it keeps coming.
They know where the water is coming from. The homes border Kennedale Junior High School, where runoff from roofs, parking lots and fields, funnels north toward the neighborhood.
A few years ago the district dug a ditch along the property line, DeSilva said, that helped for a season or two to direct the water directly toward the creek, rather than through the neighborhood. Over time though it's filled in with sediment, and the flooding returned.
He's been to Kennedale ISD school board meetings, and Kennedale City Council meetings asking for help, and showing the videos of water pouring over the walls around his yard.
"Everybody from the school board, to the superintendent, to the city council, to city mayor, they all acknowledge it's a problem," DeSilva said. "The issue is, nobody wants to be liable."
Kennedale ISD is not responsible for the flooding, according to Superintendent Chad Gee.
"Our building and land has been there for a long time, long before that neighborhood was developed," he said.
At a city meeting in April an attorney for the district suggested spending money on the problem could create constitutional issues by benefitting a private party and not the district. She also questioned safety issues that could be created for kids by cleaning out the trench, or if the project might be better in another location.
The City of Kennedale, which doesn't own any property in the location or have any easements, produced an engineering study in November 2019, with drainage calculations for a possible solution between the school and homes. Nothing was ever installed.
City manager Darrell Hull says more recently the city offered to help the district with equipment and labor to redirect water. The school district in turn sent the city a contract, that he says would require Kennedale to accept all liability for the work on the property and additional impacts.
In a meeting Tuesday night Hull told the city council they had done their best to help both sides, but the district's contract proposal had ended any city involvement in the issue.
"I can't absorb that liability for all of our residents, the city as a whole, when only three or four or five are affected by that bad action," he said.
Kennedale city attorney Carvan Adkins told council members the school district has the ability to plan projects, hire engineers and contractors and take care of the problem.
"All of those things the city would do if it was in a city park or occurring out here," he said.
Gee doesn't expect the issue is going to be solved in any short amount of time, however, saying it's tied up with attorneys.
DeSilva and his neighbors are trying keep working around the problem as they have for years; digging out sprinkler systems that get buried in silt and mud; planning backyard projects with ways the next flood can be diverted around them.
"I feel like I've done my part to protect my property," DeSilva said. "But with that volume of water, it's not enough."