Help draining a field

13 years ago

I got a problem with my lot and a high water table. The entire back half of my 3/4 acre lot is my garden property line to property line. Here's my situation, I'm south of Atlanta in Spalding county and the lay of the land is basically flat with a slight slope to the back of the lot. The property to the immediate rear is a pie shaped wedge that is part of the lot to my south with a larger tract immediately to the rear of that. My northeast corner is the intersection of the three parcels. The low corner is the southeast corner.
It seems like every third year we get a wet spring like we are having now, and this one really isn't wetter than usual, and my soil is saturated. So much so that a ditch that I have dug down the length of the south property line is full to the brim, basically the water table is just below the surface of the ground. Complicating matters is a stand of running bamboo that crosses all three parcels along my back line and the property to the north. The matted root system of the bamboo prevents any runoff to the east trapping the water on my lot.
I'm working on the bamboo and have the go ahead of two of my neighbors to kill it. My question though pertains to dumping water onto the property of another in Georgia. Eventually when the bamboo is gone, if that's even possible, I'd like continue the ditch (eventually french drain it with terra cotta) all the way to the rear and follow the line across the back and turn it out to the head of a drain at the northeast corner but that would dump the water out onto a neighbor's property. So can I do this?

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Comments (2)

apprenticegardener
13 years ago
Tough problem. I'm not a lawyer, but I don't think you can intentionally fix a problem on your land by creating one on your neighbor's.

The trench/tile idea may well be a solution, but you are safest channeling the water either to other portions of your own property (this is the purpose of a "detention" pond) or into the street (assuming there are storm sewers designed to handle the runoff).

You may be able to come to an agreement with your neighbor to construct a continuation of the trench/tile through his property onto the nearest street (with storm sewers), but this should be entirely at your expense since you are trying to fix your problem.

Just some thoughts. Best Wishes--Carl--Atlanta, GA

[When I first moved to Atlanta over 40 years ago, I bought a house on a street that went uphill to a crest and then downhill again. The house next door was at the crest of the hill. When it rained, runoff from that backyard drained through weep holes in a retaining wall on the lot line onto my driveway. The driveway channeled the water into a drain next to my house that was the opening to a pipe that went UNDER the basement of my house and exited out the side of the house (there was a sub-basement at the back corner, so the basement floor at this point was still one story above ground level). The water then was carried by an engineer-designed open concrete channel along the side of the other side neighbor's house to the back of that house, across the back and onto the property of the next lower neighbor's house. This channeling continued for several more houses across the back yards until a cross street was reached. All the houses on the street were built in the period 1927 to 1929, and all this runoff engineering was done as a part of building this "subdivision".]
herboil
13 years ago
Wow great ideas guys. LEt us know what is going on.
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