Dear Red Phone,
“Can Red Phone check with the city and find out why every morning the intersection of Welburn and Carmel, the gutter is full of water. I don’t believe it’s from over-watering. It’s every morning, especially noticeable when it’s not raining because there’s gallons and gallons of water. It finally goes away about the end of the day or if it’s iced over, and then the next morning it’s full again. Thanks.”
*****
Dear reader,
We checked in with City Operations Manager David Stubchaer to help answer your question. Here is some insight he had to offer. We hope this helps:
“We’ve checked this location for possible waterline leaks, as well as sewage spills, and found none. It actually is most likely from over-irrigation. We’ll look to see if we can get any information from water records, but this may or may not yield any useful information. Over-irrigation is simply a waste of water, but even so, ideally the water in the gutter would flow down to the next storm drain inlet without ponding.
Typically, street trees, as wonderful as trees are, sometimes cause drainage issues by raising the curb gutter enough to cause ponding in the gutter. With the large number of street trees in the city, there are also several areas with small localized drainage issues. We try to address these areas with our sidewalk repair projects, but it may be some time before we get to them all. In the meantime, as I mentioned above, we’ll see if we can find out who is over-irrigating and see if the issue can be addressed.”
David Stubchaer can be reached at (408) 846 – 0275 or via email at da*************@ci.us.
