Pond floods Lake Shore neighborhood

Extended flooding on Lake Shore Drive from Warwick Pond has the city planning to raise a section of the road within the next few weeks, DPW director and chief of staff David Picozzi said yesterday.

“The whole problem is the pond is too high,” Picozzi said. “We are fighting nature there.” Picozzi attributes the pond level to Buckeye Brook and constrictions that like a dam have cause the rising waters.

In years past, Picozzi said the city would annually clear the stream bed of growth, but with the need for permitting those maintenance efforts have ceased.

Mark Smith, who has lived on the road his whole life and at his present residence for 33 years, recalled the road first flooding in 2005 when there was a large amount of rain, then again in 2010, both of which went away. However, he and fellow resident Shana Willis claim that the flooding has been happening consistently for about 5 years each time it rains heavily.

Smith remembers around late winter or early spring when about half the road was dry, but said since the past months brought large amounts of rain, it has been flooded every day.

Willis’s property has been perhaps the most effected as she lives directly across from the brook. The water seeps into her grass, leaving part of her yard muddy. At times, she said, people drive over her yard to avoid going through the water. Her daughter has even put up a hand-drawn sign on a nearby telephone pole warning passersby of birds that bathe in the flooded area.

Willis, Smith, and at least 13 others who live on the road have signed a petition asking for the city to “take a more active approach and come up with a solution to this issue.”

“Property is being eroded and it is harming the wetland area. Cars are being exposed to daily water in the engine, brakes, etc. Not to mention the constant brackish water that is on the outside of our cars,” it says in part, going on to say the water raises health concerns for both the people living near it and the wildlife that resides in the brook. The petitions asks for a temporary solution to the flooding problem, like a bridge, so residents can resume their normal activities on the road until a permanent fix is devised. It also says that the reason the brook keeps flooding in the first place is because “the outflow stream is blocked due to mostly the invasive species – phragmites.” In order to raise the road without affecting the wetlands that would require permits from DEM, Picozzi said concrete blocks would be placed on both sides of the road. The city would then raise the road with fill and paving. He said that Dig Safe has marked the locations of utilities in preparation for the work.

Councilman Tim Howe said he’s been to the site of the flooding at least 5 times and has brought fellow Councilmen Ed Ladouceur, Steven McAllister, Jeremy Rix, and Council President Joseph Solomon to observe. He said he’s tried to request temporary solutions like sandbags or dredging to relieve the immediate situation, but expressed frustration about the attempts, saying he’s been “completely left out” of City Hall conversations - the only communication he said he has received on that end is from City Engineer Eric Earles. Howe said he’s now attempted to reach out to the RI National Guard on his own to see if metal tracking can be put over the road to protect cars.

As for a long-term solution, Picozzi looks to opening the flow of Buckeye Brook although that’s not likely to happen soon. The city funded a permitting application, but according to Phil D’Ercole, President of Friends of Warwick Ponds, DEM rejected a study of the brook planned for a December 2017 completion by the city. Originally, he wrote, he thought the study would satisfy a DEM Request for Preliminary Determination, but now is of the opinion that it must satisfy requirements of a DEM Application to Alter a Freshwater Wetland. However, he also wrote that the study “is not adequately funded” to meet the latter requirements and thus will not be completed in December as originally planned.

“The Application to Alter a Freshwater Wetlands is the most involved application type and could require other actions such as an Environmental Impact Study, etc,” he wrote in an email.

Now, D’Ercole believes the study will not be completed until 2018 or 2019.

“We have to go through a whole permitting process in order for this to happen,” Picozzi said. “There’s no easy fix.”

When asked for comment, DEM responded that the situation is a “local issue” and directed the request to the City of Warwick.