A few Mauldin residents received some information they’ve been waiting for at the May meeting of Mauldin City Council’s Public Works committee. At the end of the lengthy meeting, they were still left with questions though.

Residents from an area of the Forrester Woods subdivision attended the meeting to hear results of a study on storm drainage. Over the past few years, homeowners along Crepe Myrtle Court have experienced recurring issues with private storm drainage piping. That piping was installed in the early 1970’s when Forrester Woods was developed.

Mauldin City Council approved the study during the Jan. 19 council meeting. At that meeting, City Attorney John Duggan explained the situation and the city’s role in it.

Duggan said Forrester Woods was built after approval by Greenville County, and thus had to comply with county requirements for storm water and drainage. At that time, concrete culverts were required.

“What has happened as best as we can tell, because the developer is no longer alive, is that there was an area across a number of lots that had a ditch and maybe a spring,” Duggan said at the council meeting. “In order to make the lots more attractive to sell, the developer installed galvanized pipe and buried it running it across private yards without notifying the County.”

Engineers from Goodwyn, Mills and Cawood, Inc. (GMC) completed the study. Their report states that the corrugated metal piping installed at Crepe Myrtle Court has deteriorated to the point where numerous failures have occurred along the route. That route is outside of the existing road right-of-way and appears to cross the right-of-way several times as it makes its way down the road. There are no apparent as-built drawings of the pipe.

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That confirmed what Duggan mentioned in January. Duggan said that when that part of the metal pipe rusted out it put holes in property owner’s yards starting about six years ago. Mauldin put a camera in to see where the pipe was, where it led to and to see if it was in the right-of-way, which it wasn’t.

“Under state law, any public government body cannot spend money improving someone’s private property. It has got to be in the right of way or owned by the public,” Duggan said. “Unfortunately, this pipe is well off the right of way in the property owner’s yard.”

Duggan said the pipe has done the same thing in other places since that first incident. He also reminded City Council that the city’s Public Works crews would not be able to go work in property owner’s yards without the owners granting right of way.

During GMC’s presentation at the May committee meeting, engineer John Raiford said that when the pipes begin to fail soil falls into them creating the sinkholes. Raiford added that the current pipe was also too small.

“The drainage area that flow to this pipe is 38 acres. There’s about 88 parcels that are within that,” Raiford. “The current pipe is 18 to 24 inches, which is really too small to handle the flow that’s coming to it. I estimate a required size would be 24 to 36 inches.”

GMC presented four options for repair and the estimated costs:

GMC’s recommendation was the blended alternative repair. Raiford said it would give the city the most “bang for its buck.” It would require work in only five private easements (homeowner’s yards), rather than the 13 the other solutions would require. Whether its five or 13, consent would be needed from all homeowners who would have work done in their yards for any repairs to be done.

Raiford said the blended alternative would also offer less traffic interruption than other options.

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Forrester Woods’ drainage problems, as well as others in the cities, were highlighted three years ago. On July 8, 2013, 4.62 inches of rain fell in Mauldin in one hour and 45 minutes. Some homeowners in other parts of the city lost their homes because of the flood. Others were forced to leave their homes, which were deemed unsafe to live in.

“I’m not trying to short any of the drainage problems out there (Forrester Woods), I understand that. But we also have drainage problems all over the city,” Public Words committee chairman Larry Goodson said. “We really haven’t been able to address any of them.

“My goal was to see us come up with a policy or an ordinance that gives us guidelines and budgeted money to use toward drainage repair each year.”

Goodson said a policy could help Mauldin develop a ranking of areas for drainage repair based on biggest need and help determine how repairs are funded.

The committee voted 3-0 to send the topic to full council for further discussion on coming up with a policy.

During the time for public comment, Forrester Woods’ residents in attendance expressed their concerns with the vote. Some said they’d been looking for answers to this problem for six years. Others wondered why a study was done if repairs were still going to have to wait.

“The reason we committed to this (study) was to put us at a starting point,” Goodson said.

At the request of the committee, residents at the meeting left their contact information so that the city could keep them informed of the process.

The item will likely be discussed by full council at the next City Council meeting scheduled for May 16.