Tom and I are pictured removing invasive honeysuckle and euonymus from the Shamrock Courts in Sullivan, MO. In the center all the volunteers are having a lunch break.
On November 7 and 8th, 2020, members of the Route 66 Association of Missouri and other volunteers worked on a historic preservation project at the Shamrock Courts in Sullivan, MO. The Shamrock Courts were an historic Route 66 motel that was later converted to apartments and then left empty for over a decade. The goals of the volunteers on this cleanup weekend were to preserve the buildings, get the property cleaned up and looking good to help it find a good buyer who will restore it, and to look for artifacts and history to pass on to the new owners and to the historic record of Route 66.
I was only able to go on Sunday the 8th because I had a lot of homework, but was nevertheless very pleased to make my contribution. My husband Tom joined me. I concentrated on removing invasive vegetation from the building and the surrounding property. Removing the invasive vegetation helps with preservation because it prevents fast growing trees and vines from gradually prying apart bits of the buildings. In addition taking seeds and parts of the plants that can grow away from the property helps to prevent regrowth and the cost of future labor to remove it. I may be back because there is a lot more to do!
Artifacts that thrill Route 66 fans
When you can find actual historic details and artifacts, it’s an extra reward. For Route 66 fans, to see the outside of buildings like this is exciting, but it’s even better when you can get permission to get close and even go inside to discover things that you may not ever see during a “drive-by” photo op visit, or in a book. Historic finds, like the neon sign tubing we are holding up in the center photo, add to the historic value of the property as well as the satisfaction for history-loving owners and volunteers.
Personally, the day I spent at the Shamrock was extra special because it was on the 21st anniversary weekend of attending my first Route 66 Association of Missouri meeting and the first weekend of exploring Route 66 in Missouri with my Mom and Dad. We stayed at the Boots Motel and stopped for classic roadside sights for the first time such as Red Oak II and Bill’s Station. The following year I became a lifetime member of the Route 66 Association of Missouri!
Here is my final paper for Strategic Communication Applications. It’s been graded now, but since class is over and I got a score that pleases me I didn’t make any changes here. As you’ll see, I refer to myself in the third person in this paper. That is because I decided to write it as if was an impartial observer. Enjoy!
Carolyn Hasenfratz Winkelmann
Mary Bufe
PBRL 5380: Strategic Communication Applications
16 October 2020
This analysis will examine how public relations campaigns have encouraged the installation of rainscaping and rain gardens in St. Louis County and what were the results when citizens attempted to enact what the campaigns recommended. Rainscaping is a landscaping technique that utilizes green infrastructure including directing excess stormwater runoff into planted bioretention areas, known as rain gardens (Buranen). Some residents of St. Louis County have received cooperation from the county while installing their rainscaping features, while we know of one St. Louis County couple, Tom Winkelmann and Carolyn Hasenfratz Winkelmann, who experienced persecution and harassment from St. Louis County for using the same recommended techniques.
Organization’s history and background
Deer Creek Watershed is an area of St. Louis County that is a sub-watershed of the River Des Peres Watershed. The River Des Peres Watershed is large and complex with portions in both St. Louis City and St. Louis County (EcoWorks Unlimited 6). In 2008, citizens who lived in the Deer Creek Watershed approached Missouri Botanical Garden to explore ways of mitigating destructive water runoff activity in their locality. Missouri Botanical Garden formed an alliance for the purpose of exploring plant-based solutions to stormwater runoff problems with these citizens, along with “Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District, Washington University, East-West Gateway Council of Governments, American Society of Civil Engineers, Great Rivers Greenway, Missouri Department of Conservation, Missouri Department of Natural Resources, Missouri Stream Teams, River des Peres Watershed Coalition, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, St. Louis County, local garden clubs” and 21 local municipalities (EcoWorks Unlimited 6, 9).
St. Louis County entered into an agreement with the federal Environmental Protection Agency from 2003-2013 (Sutin) to reduce storm water runoff and pollution, problems that rainscaping helps to fight. Combined sewer overflows, sanitary and stormwater, have been plaguing the St. Louis metro area for years, causing damage and pollution in the area and downstream. As a result the Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District is required by the EPA and the Missouri Coalition for the Environment to fix the problem in 23 years. The clock started in 2011 (Buranen).
St. Louis County and the Metropolitan Sewer District, hereafter known in this document as STLCO and MSD, have constituencies that overlap. Besides being fellow members of the Deer Creek Watershed Alliance, aka DCWA, these two organizations are logical allies in the fight against stormwater pollution and flooding.
Demonstration projects along with testing and water quality monitoring were performed by alliance members in parts of the affected watershed in order to successfully prove the effectiveness of rainscaping techniques (EcoWorks Unlimited 23-25, Winkelmann “Aquatic Macro Invertebrates…”, Buranen). Since the majority of land within the target watershed is privately owned, it was necessary to enroll citizens in the alliance’s goals and projects (EcoWorks Unlimited 19, 22).
Organization’s Mission, Vision and Brand
In its own words, the mission of DCWA is “facilitating a community-wide effort for over 10 years to protect and improve water quality through plant-based solutions” (The Deer Creek Alliance).
After its inception, DCWA recommended the following public relations efforts to enlist citizen involvement (EcoWorks Unlimited 22).
Rainscaping demonstration projects in schools.
Workshops for area professionals.
Annual public engagement projects led by citizens.
Building a contact list of citizens in the watershed through tables at festivals, networking, presentations utilizing PowerPoint, and media campaigns.
Cultivating the contact list with email newsletters, the web site, and public meetings.
Helping cities communicate about pilot projects, incentives and barrier removal mechanisms.
In 2014, when the Deer Creek Watershed Management Plan Summary was finalized, St. Louis County resident Carolyn Hasenfratz, now known as Carolyn Hasenfratz Winkelmann, was single and living within the Deer Creek Watershed in a condominium in Brentwood. Already an avid gardener, she obtained a permit to garden around her condo unit right after her 2004 move in. Keenly interested in sustainable and eco-friendly gardening, she constantly updated her knowledge and practices with every bit of information she could glean from “green” gatherings and gardening resources. A frequent attendee at events such as Earth Day and the Sustainable Living Expo, she was aware of Project Clear, Operation Clean Stream and other alliance member activities through some of the table promotions mentioned by the DCWA(Winkelmann “Photo of Patches”). Observing water runoff problems around her condo unit, Winkelmann experimented with, to the extent allowed by the condo association guidelines, small scale stormwater control techniques (Winkelmann “Garden Maintenance in…”).
In 2016, Winkelmann successfully completed training and was certified in the St. Louis Master Gardener program, a membership she has retained until the present time (Winkelmann “Mass Communication Final…”). Master Gardener activities include yearly minimum time commitments for volunteer work and continuing education, and consequently brought Winkelmann into closer involvement with Project Clear and the Deer Creek Watershed Alliance, as she personally participated in several of their outreach efforts and projects.
Missouri Stream Teams – Winkelmann became a volunteer at the Litzinger Road Ecology Center immediately after certification as a Master Gardener. LREC is a Missouri Botanical Garden facility and is located right on Deer Creek. Volunteers from Missouri Stream Teams, another DCWA partner organization, conducted a demonstration of surveying macro-invertebrates which is one of their methods of testing the effectiveness of rainscaping techniques (Winkelmann “Aquatic Macro Invertebrates…”). She has volunteered for several years in Operation Clean Stream events, an ongoing cleanup effort of trash along area waterways (Winkelmann “Operation Clean Stream…”).
Workshops for area professionals – Winkelmann attended a session on green controls for stormwater runoff at Missouri Botanical Garden to learn more about rainscaping (Winkelmann “Photo of Handouts”).
Presentations utilizing PowerPoint – After attending a presentation on Project Clear by an MSD representative, Winkelmann wrote an article for her employer’s newsletter to help disseminate the information to customers (Winkelmann “MSD’s Project Clear…”). MSD has been promoting a long-term campaign called Project Clear, the “planning, design and construction of MSD’s initiative to improve water quality and alleviate many wastewater concerns in the St. Louis region” (Winkelmann “MSD’s Project Clear…”). Project Clear utilizes a three-part classification system to organize projects. The category “Get the Rain Out” is the portion that addresses remedies in which individual citizens and property owners can engage (MSD Project Clear “MSD Project Clear Initiative”). The premise of “Get the Rain Out” is that if we reduce the amount of rainwater that goes into the stormwater management systems at peak times, disasters can be averted and the water quality for our region and those downstream from us will improve. The aforementioned practice of rainscaping is one of the two main initiatives in the “Get the Rain Out” category (MSD Project Clear “Rainscaping”). A prominent incentive touted for rainscaping is monetary grants to property owners who install rainscaping features. (MSD Project Clear “MSD Project Clear Initiative”).
Problem Statement
Carolyn Hasenfratz married Tom Winkelmann in 2018 and moved into the husband’s home in Affton. The couple started installing rainscaping features shortly after becoming engaged since the property had severe existing drainage problems. According to Winkelmann’s blog, the next-door neighbor made false claims to St. Louis County about the effect of the Winkelmann’s rainscaping on her property, resulting in a year of entanglements with the St. Louis County Department of Public Works. The husband, who is the registered property owner, was forced to appear in court under pain of arrest (Winkelmann “Drainage Problems Are…”). After the charges were dismissed in court in July 2019, Winkelmann’s blog reports that harassment of the couple by the St. Louis County Department of Public works resumed in January 2020 and persisted until the end of April 2020 when the couple contacted the County Executive’s office and provided video documentation of the alleged harassment (Winkelmann “St. Louis County…”). The current position of the St. Louis County Department of Public Works is that the rainscaping employed by the Winkelmanns is acceptable and no explanation was offered to explain their previous opposition.
Since St. Louis County is a member of the Deer Creek Watershed Alliance, to have part of the organization undermining the alliance’s goals is confusing and could discourage other St. Louis County residents from adopting rainscaping techniques. The attitude of the St. Louis County Department of Public Works shown to this couple indicates that at least some of the inspectors and supervisor of inspectors are or were either uninformed about rainscaping, hostile to it, or both. Here is a quote from the supervisor of inspectors to Mrs. Winkelmann that seems to indicate skepticism about rainscaping as a concept, and mockery toward the homeowners for employing it. “Should a complaint come in about a public nuisance created by the ditches you’ve dug in your husband’s yard we will be required by law to re-issue the NOV and seek compliance. If you want to create a “rain garden” at some time in the future, and the necessary changes involved with that process are in violation of County ordinances, you will need to seek a special use permit or a zoning variance” (Winkelmann “Drainage Problems Are”). It’s less than precise to judge attitudes solely from written communication, but this supervisor refused to speak to the Winkelmanns on the phone or to visit the site in person despite repeated invitations, so this kind of communication is all the evidence of the department’s attitudes available.
Who is involved or affected? How are they involved or affected and why is this a concern to the organization and its publics?
Events in recent history have made it clear that flooding in St. Louis County is still a serious problem. For example, the River Des Peres flooded in 2019 and 2020, causing pollution and property destruction in South St. Louis (Hignett, Lincoln, Wicentowski). A South St. Louis resident estimated the amount of water in his neighborhood to be equivalent to the historic flood of 1993. 2019 and 2020 are eight and nine years into the 23-year agreement between MSD, the EPA, and Missouri Coalition for the Environment. The 1993 and 2019 flood events that the resident compared are very different in scale in terms of the effects on the entire metro area, so this one event may not mean that MSD is losing the battle and is going to miss their deadline. However, these recent floods could be regarded as evidence that there is still a lot of work to be done.
If the St. Louis County Department of Public Works is going to persecute people who try to be part of the solution, they will discourage property owners from adopting rainscaping techniques and we will all pay the price in higher sewer bills, flood destruction and deteriorated water quality. All subscribers to MSD are affected because of the cost, and every person who lives downstream from the St. Louis metro area is affected by decreased water quality – all the way to the Gulf of Mexico where there is a dead zone at the mouth of the Mississippi that varies in size every year (“Mississippi River…”). This has implications for the health of drinking water downstream, the health of fishing in the Gulf, property loss, decreased tourism, land erosion and possibly other destructive effects (“Mississippi River…”).
Mrs. Winkelmann personally spent over 43.6 hours of labor defending the rainscaping she and her husband installed, representing an economic loss because she is partially self-employed and that is time that she could have spent earning money instead (Winkelmann “St. Louis County…”). The couple spent approximately $300 on security cameras to obtain evidence to stop the harassment, and since they don’t live in the area that offers rebates to homeowners who install rainscaping, all of the property upgrades have been performed at their own personal expense (Winkelmann “St. Louis County…”).
MSD and the other members of the DCWA have invested huge amounts of money and labor into trying to convince the public to install rainscaping features on their own property (Buranen). MSD subscribers have partially paid for this advocacy with their sewer bills and will be paying for many more years. Many people do not have the resources, time, or the interest to fight St. Louis County and could be intimidated out of acting in an environmentally responsible way just because it’s easier and cheaper and keeps them out of court, not because they are indifferent the environment and our fellow Americans downriver.
Anyone who contributes resources to the following partial list of organizations, either voluntarily or through taxation, is potentially having some of their money that was spent on sponsoring the Deer Creek Watershed Alliance wasted: Great Rivers Greenway, Missouri Department of Conservation, US EPA Region 7, Missouri Department of Natural Resources, Missouri Botanical Garden, Washington University, East-West Gateway Council of Governments, American Society of Civil Engineers, Missouri Stream Teams, River des Peres Watershed Coalition, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, St. Louis County, allied local garden clubs and the 21 affected local municipalities (The Deer Creek Alliance, EcoWorks Unlimited 6, 9). Most of the money for the cost-share grants is derived from private property taxes (Chen).
Continued Advocacy and Outreach by Alliance Members
DCWA members continue to work on the organization’s goals of mitigating pollution, habitat loss and flood damage with the help of plants. The Alliance “Take Action” web page calls for the following activities (Deer Creek Watershed Alliance “Take Action”):
The Rainscaping Cost-Share Program – funded by the “Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District, Mabel Dorn Reeder Foundation, and US EPA Region 7 through the Missouri Department of Natural Resources (subgrant number G19-NPS-11), under Section 319 of the Clean Water Act”, the cost-share program continues with large and small cost-share grants available, to help out individual homeowners, businesses and institutions (MSD Project Clear “Rainscaping”).
Education – online resources to teach property owners how to rainscape (Deer Creek Watershed Alliance “Rainscaping”, “Rain Gardens”).
Water pollution prevention tips (Deer Creek Watershed Alliance “Reduce Water Pollution”, Winkelmann “Online photo album…”).
Guidelines on conducting a citizen led creek cleanup (Deer Creek Watershed Alliance “Lead a Creek Cleanup”).
News of volunteer activities and opportunities from the Green Keepers, Great Rivers Missouri Master Naturalists, Missouri Stream Teams, Open Space Council and St. Louis Master Gardeners (Deer Creek Watershed Alliance “Webster Groves Green Keepers”). Some of the organizations listed here are official alliance members while others are assumed by this analyst to be allies as their goals and projects often overlap.
Invasive Honeysuckle removal (Deer Creek Watershed Alliance “Root Docking Invasive Honeysuckle”, Winkelmann “Tips for Removing…”).
News about continuing education opportunities (Deer Creek Watershed Alliance “Learning Opportunities”).
Project Clear outreach and educational exhibits in an annex at the new St. Louis Aquarium (Winkelmann “Online photo album…”). In this area visitors can get brochures about Project Clear, play interactive games, use an interactive and educational kiosk, view a demonstration rain garden and engage in other activities that educate about water quality and water conservation.
Evaluation
One result that is easy to see is that The Deer Creek Watershed Alliance did an excellent job getting the word out about the cost-share grants for rainscaping. This analyst found news articles about the availability of the grants from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Giegerich, Schuessler), Kirkwood, MO Patch (Greenbaum), St. Louis Public Radio (Chen) and the St. Louis American (“MSD accepting applications…”).
Have property owners been taking advantage of the grants? “In the model [first] round, there were only eight applications. The second [following year] round had sixty-six applications” reported an official in 2018 (Buranen). Two of Project Clear’s pilot rainscaping projects, Old North and Cortex, have been well-received by the public and the educational signage has been observed to attract attention and interest (Buranen). Interest in rain gardens has increased throughout the area even by those, like the Winkelmanns, who are not located in the grant award area (Buranen). For example, an alternate funding source provided the large rain gardens on the Webster University campus in Webster Groves (Buranen). The Deer Creek Watershed Alliance published an infographic in 2018, claiming credit for 364 rainscaping project installations among many other educational and environmental achievements during its first 10 years (Deer Creek Watershed Alliance “Achievements”).
Negative reactions
Since neither the St. Louis County Department of Public Works or the County Executive’s office would provide an explanation to the Winkelmanns about the initial resistance to their rainscaping (Winkelmann “St. Louis County…”), this analyst can only speculate about what the problem might have been. In a search for negative reactions in the St. Louis area to the idea of rainscaping, excepting the reports in the Winkelmann blog, only one example was found by this analyst. Here are a couple of selections from a letter to the editor, published by the St Louis Post-Dispatch in 2013 (Niehaus).
“New gardens may rain dollars” (Jan. 6) reports that homeowners in 14 communities may receive up to $2,000 if they “rainscape” their yards to retain run-off into the Deer Creek watershed.”
Mr. Niehaus put the word “rainscape” in quotes in a mocking way, similar to John L. Geiler, Assistant Chief Residential Inspector of St. Louis County Public Works, who mocked the Winkelmanns “rain garden” in his email without having first accepted an invitation to come to look at it (Winkelmann “Drainage Problems Are…”).
“Funny, I don’t recall voting on a measure that would pass along thousands of dollars to needy homeowners in Ladue, Clayton, Creve Coeur, Frontenac, Kirkwood, Warson Woods, etc.”
From that sentence and the rest of the published letter, it is apparent that there is a lot of information that this citizen did not know. For example, rain gardens put in along Deer Creek reduce flooding and pollution in places like South St. Louis and everywhere downstream from that, including many communities not as affluent as the places he mentioned. Nevertheless, appearing to divert taxpayer money to the benefit of wealthy citizens is not a good impression to create, and it would be helpful for the Deer Creek Watershed Alliance to continue to also promote the rain garden projects in other less advantaged parts of the metro area to raise their profile. With prevalent citizen apathy to government activities (Broom and Sha 362) and a dearth of reporters to create original news coverage (Grieco), a lot of misinformation that gets out into the public remains uncorrected and unexamined.
It’s more surprising that some St. Louis County government employees, who work for an organization that is a Deer Creek Watershed member, seem to be little better informed six to seven years later (Winkelmann “Drainage Problems Are…”, “St. Louis County…”). We know that there are many barriers to successful communication between citizens and government as well as branches of government with each other (Broom and Sha 356-366). In addition to lack of interest by citizens and a shortage of reporters, the scale of the task is overwhelming and there are bureaucratic layers, mistrust, and actors with varying agendas to overcome.
Despite all these challenges, the sources I have found in preparing this analysis seem to indicate that the rainscaping movement in the St. Louis area is not dying out, but rather is gaining momentum. Since the Winkelmanns have been left alone by the Department of Public Works since April 2020 (Winkelmann “St. Louis County…”), at least one more of St. Louis County’s internal publics, the Department of Public Works, seems to have been brought further into co-orientation with the other Deer Creek Watershed Alliance members. That is good news, because as evidenced by recent floods, the need for more green infrastructure in our area has not abated.
“Mississippi River/Gulf of Mexico Hypoxia Task Force.” United States Environmental Protection Agency, 2020, www.epa.gov/ms-htf. Accessed 15 October 2020.
Recently on the Schnarr’s Hardware blog, I wrote about one of my favorite cookbooks, harvesting collards and greens from my garden and my favorite quiche recipe.
Practicing plant symbols and textures according to the book Plan Graphics for the Landscape Designer: 2nd Edition by Tony Bertauski
Today the St. Louis area is experiencing a sleet and snow mixture. In a week or so, it will be time to start some seeds indoors for the earliest garden plants such as onions and chives. See the Schnarr’s Hardware calendar that includes suggested seed starting, planting times and harvest times for the St. Louis area. That means it’s not too early to plan your garden for 2020! I’ve been practicing landscape plan drawing as I work on my garden plan. More examples and more details are on the Schnarr’s blog!
Our next door neighbor has been discharging most of her drainage into our yard for years, causing thousands of dollars of damage to our property. We installed rain gardens to keep her runoff from further damaging our home. St. Louis County wants us to get rid of our fixes and be subjected to damage again when the problem originates next door. I’m going to document our steps again as we fight this plus the time I’m spending, so I’m beginning a new log. Where we left off, I had spent 27.81 hours working on our defense.
The county’s position is that our neighbor can alter her property as much as she wants and discharge water as much as she wants, even directly on our driveway. But if we do anything to protect our house, which has major structural damage from her water and will cost more than $10,000 to fix (not including the cracks upstairs), we are in the wrong and have to go to court. Plus we have to let it happen again and again, we cannot prevent it or protect the new driveway we got in 2018. We are looking at 10s of thousands of damages. You are allowed by law to take emergency measures to protect your property, but they don’t think that applies to us for some reason.
If you think this is unfair, I think it would help us out to leave comments at the end of this blog post or contact media outlets you respect with a news tip. Thank you if you can help! Even if you disagree with us your comments will help this site in the search engines.
What follows is a long read, but it’s necessary to log all the information in one place so that people who need background on the situation can get it fast. I’ll keep updating at the end as things progress.
My other main reason for making this log public, is that for years organizations like MSD and Missouri Botanical Garden have been advocating for citizens to install rain gardens to improve local water quality, reduce flooding, and reduce erosion. Our region has suffered greatly from floods for decades, if not millenia because of our natural geology. Rain gardens can help reduce this while protecting and beautifying our own property. I installed a small one at my condo several years ago to protect my neighbor’s air conditioner from the drainpipe that led off my condo’s building. It worked wonderfully well and had the other happy effects of reducing runoff, erosion and silt into Lake Jefferson in Brentwood which suffers from periodic inundation, silting and destructive algae blooms in the summer. Pleased with the results I have written articles on how to do this. But recent experiences have shown me what can happen if you try to do deal with your runoff in an ethical way. If you undergo a campaign of persecution, MOBOT, MSD and other environmentally minded organizations in the region will not help you – you are on your own and have to be your own advocate. So I want other people to see what works and what does not work if they get into this situation, because I in a tiny way might be responsible for some people falling into the same trap my husband and I are in. As a Master Gardener, part of my duty is to pass on what I have learned, and as a professional garden writer I need to inform people about what pitfalls they might fall into if they employ garden techniques that other people don’t like for some reason or don’t understand.
01-14-20 – Received letter saying we have to remove our landscaping along the fence line.
01-15-20 – I sent an email to an official from MSD, the St. Louis County Property Complaints division, and John Geiler of St. Louis County. I left phone messages for John Geiler and Mike Hite (whose name is on the notice of violation letter). I requested a personal meeting with John Geiler so I can tour the property with him and show him the problems. I sent a copy of the letter to my attorney requesting legal assistance. I also sent a link to this update to the Great Rivers Environmental Law Center, Stream Teams United, River Des Peres Watershed Coalition, Environment Missouri, Open Space Council for the St. Louis Region, Deer Creek Watershed Alliance, Missouri Coalition for the Environment, and Great Rivers Greenway.
Time spent as of 01-15-20 – 28.39 hours
Update 01-16-20: Since yesterday, I have been contacted by the St. Louis County inspector, a representative from MSD, and a representative from the Great Rivers Environmental Law Center. Here is an email I sent to the MSD representative and the supervisor of the inspector a few minutes ago. It will fill you in on the situation as of right now.
Here, as requested, is what it says in the notice about the exact violation.
“Violation 1 302.2 Grading and Drainage. Health Related. All premises shall be graded and maintained to prevent the erosion of soil and to prevent the accumulation of stagnant water thereon. REMOVE THE LANDSCAPING ALONG YOUR FENCE WHERE THE WATER CAN FLOW AS IT WAS DESIGNED.”
Mike Hite, who is the inspector listed on the notice, called me this morning and let me know that he received my email. In his message he said that people always block the water from the other yard. He assumed we did that, but we did not do that, the water was not blocked but facilitated in the flow from her yard to ours. Just because other people do it, it does not follow that that is what we did.
I don’t know why no one from the county will look at the actual property, look at the pictures I’ve provided or the videos to see the following.
Water was on both sides of the fence before I did anything. Photos are in my first article with dates on them showing this. I can show you on my phone to show when I took the photos and did not fake the dates on the graphic. Here it is:
March 2018
The flow of water from her property to ours probably worked fine in the 1950s when these homes were built. Here is what happened. Over the years, lawns on both sides got mowed over and over, but you can’t mow the actual fence line. Over the years, plant roots and organic matter build up along the fence, creating a high spot along the fence line. This trapped water on her side. At the same time, repeated inundations of water in both yards, and nothing planted in the yards in the affected area except turfgrass, caused the soil to be compacted in the areas that collect water. Turfgrass is not a very permeable surface especially if maintained for decades in a way that depletes the soil. So the problem the county says we caused was pre-existing.
Over the years, apparently more of her yard was paved causing runoff to have to be dumped into a smaller area of soil than the drainage was originally designed for, exacerbating the problem further. I can’t return the property to the original configuration it was designed in because the property next to us (7409 Rockwood Dr) already altered the dynamic decades ago causing much damage to the soil and altering the original drainage forever. When these houses were built they did not design the situation to still be sustainable 70 years later. We know a lot more about landscaping and how it affects water and soil than we did in 1954. Even if I could return the landscaping in both yards to it’s 1950s state, the problem would occur again over time. My landscaping is designed to be sustainable because I’ve used the knowledge we now have in the 21st century to make it so.
When I first built the raised bed along the fence line, the neighbor thought it was ugly so she complained that it was trapping water on her side. I don’t know if that was true or not since water was already trapped on her side before I did anything. Nevertheless, I knew that was not a desirable outcome and having no inclination to damage her already unattractive yard and feeble turfgrass further I took steps to make sure that does not happen. I removed the bricks in the low spot, removed the bricks along the back edge of the bed (solely because she told me she thought they were ugly, I replaced them with fine black mesh that is less visible and also more permeable just in case), made my collection area on our side larger and lower than her side, and now her yard drains completely. That is not all I did, you have a full list from my previous article, but those are the major things.
Her yard didn’t drain completely BEFORE we changed anything. I have checked it after each and every rain (other than when we were in Yellowstone last summer) to make sure (edit after sending) it does now. We IMPROVED the existing problem rather than causing it as we have been accused of doing.
Here is a link to an image that has been available to the county since July 2019.
Location of three of the four drainage pipes aimed at our yard with water collection areas indicated from before we started work.
Mike said in his phone message to me that he could not find one of the drainage pipes that is closer than 10 feet when he came to our property. I question whether the inspectors actually get out of their trucks to look because I witnessed one in May (the 2nd) doing an inspection without even stopping the truck all the way. This diagram shows clearly where to look for the pipes. I actually left one off when I made this diagram – there is one more at the north edge of the carport that I didn’t notice when I made this. Yes it’s hard to see everything at first glance, but it’s my opinion that if you are citing someone for a violation that has already been dropped in the court once, shouldn’t you be certain about these things? There is a real economic cost to me having to spend time fighting this over and over when it has been fixed since May 4. I’m partially self-employed and when I’m working on this I’m not earning money. I have plenty of proof in photo and video. I am willing to show it to a judge if that’s what it takes. Why can’t the inspectors look at the actual evidence when it’s been provided over and over again? That’s the part I can’t understand.
Here is the second pipe that is closer than 10 feet from our property (right photo).
This image was provided to the county in August 2019. The tape measure is shown extended to 10 feet. The pipe has not moved since I took this picture. I don’t understand why the inspector could not see it. You are welcome to come and measure it, don’t take my word for it. Are you not allowed to walk beyond the gate? That I understand. There is no lock on it, but if you are not allowed to go beyond that explains this whole mess. Please make an appointment with me and I’ll show you everything in person. This offer of a tour has been on the table since August 2019.
I also offered soil, fertilizer and grass seed to the neighbor at NO COST to repair the water damaged spot in her yard. I would even install it for free if she wanted me to. We did not cause the damage, it was caused by outdated landscape management practices that are harmful to the soil quality over time. But it’s in both of our best interests to improve the appearance of her lawn and if she believes we caused it I’m happy to fix it. I physically extended with my actual arm an actual bag of grass seed that I bought for her and showed her a pile of soil that we ordered from St. Louis Compost and offered her a share of it to revive her grass. The grass seed I offered her has roots up to four feet long which will help greatly in reducing her soil compaction and helping it absorb water. You cannot buy this grass seed in big box stores. She turned me down flat. The grass on our side of the fence is fine, even in the spots that flood all the time. It’s good enough that a client of mine bought plugs of it from me last summer. I’d love to tell this all to a judge, believe me, so I have no fear of being taken to court again. If you think that is a threat to me (the phone call made sure to include that), after reading the above I’m sure you can understand why it is not.
Thank you for your time.”
Time spent as of 01-16-20 – 30.25 hours
Update: 01-17-20
I have not heard from anyone except MSD since my last update. Here is copy of a letter I have just sent to John Geiler of St. Louis County who supervises the inspectors.
“Hi, I’ve attached a photo that I took this morning. With the water frozen, it’s easier to see where the wet spots are. You can see where the fence is. The top portion is our neighbor’s yard. The bottom portion is ours. This is the low spot in our backyards where water flows from one yard to another. As you can see, we are not trapping water in her yard.
I don’t know why she keeps falsely reporting that we are. I don’t know why your inspectors keep falsely reporting that we are. I can speculate but don’t know for sure. I have contacted my attorney to find out how to put a stop to this. It’s been going on since May. I have blind copied him in on this email and I will be publishing this letter on my blog shortly so no one can claim you have not been kept fully informed through each step.
I have sent emails to both Mike Hite and John Geiler. I spoke to Mike on the phone this morning. His attitude is clear. He is not interested in looking at any of my evidence and does not feel he has to actually understand the case before taking my husband to court. Eventually I will put more of my evidence here when I have time and keep track of my hours that I have spent the last few days but he make it clear he will not look at any more so I will not bother to send any more. He made it clear that 8 months is not enough time to read an email or look at a two and half minute video. He said he can’t look at videos because they might have viruses but he refused to look at it on my phone, plus it’s on YouTube so he knows it won’t have a virus anyway.
So, I guess we’re headed to court no matter what we do because we are clearly being set up to fail. I hope the judge has a better understanding of the case than the inspectors are willing to have.
Update: 02/25/20
Ok, a friend of mine in the real estate business has advised me to print out every email I have sent the county, and I’m going to do that when we go to court. In the meantime the emails will all go here also. I’m going to be writing to a lot of people and they will need to see all the letters in one place. I will list the date of each one, and what the response was, if there was a response.
On February 20, Michael Hite came to the property at 7409 Rockwood. From my desk at 7405 Rockwood, I could see him. I have been wanting to talk to someone from the County in person since May of 2019, but before this they have always come on days when I’m not here. Before February 20, the only exception was May 2, 2019, the day before we got our first notice from the county. A county truck came by but did not stop all the way. When they saw I was there they hit the gas and sped off. I don’t know who the driver was, but I remember it being a woman.
On February 20 I came out and greeted Mike and offered to show him around and explain what is going on and discuss how to fix it. He was not interested in anything more than a cursory look. He would not listen to the questions or comments I had. I offered to show him video on my phone of what I was talking about. He would not look at it. I invited him to come inside and look at the video on my computer. He declined. He asked me to send him videos and pictures by email. He said not more than five or so. I said ok.
Here is what I sent him that day, recreating the best I can.
Video – They were .MOV files on Thursday. I have put them on You Tube today so everyone can see them.
Pictures
Drainage from 7409 to 7405 Rockwood, summer 2019Low spot between our yards – 01-17-20
The above two photos of the ice on our driveway are to show that Diane Broy at 7409 Rockwood Drive, St. Louis MO 63123 is continuing to discharge water onto our driveway in violation of St. Louis County law. Her pipe is closer than the 10 feet allowed, it is four feet. We had to have our driveway replaced in 2018 because of years of this discharge undermining the soil and causing cracks with all the freeze thaw cycles. This is also where I park and as you can see it’s a hazard to walk in our own driveway because of her. I reported this in July 2019. I pointed it out again to Mike on February 20, 2020 and sent him these pictures on February 20, 2020. The ice pictures were taken on January 19, 2020.
Those are the image and videos I sent to Mike while he was running away from me that I could not get him to look at on my phone while we were both standing there. One bit of information I did manage to get from his was the following. I asked him about the complaint that we were trapping water on her side of the fence and how he could see while we were standing there that the water was all on our side. Mike said he had video of water on her side of the fence from an earlier visit that he took during a rain. So I said the standard we have to meet then is no water can be on her side WHILE IT’S RAINING? How are we supposed to do that when it originates on her side?
After Mike left, this was my follow up email on February 20.
March 2018
“As you can see, we did not cause the problem. It existed before I changed anything. We FIXED the problem. We did not cause it.. See this video of water flowing freely during a rain last summer.”
“It did not flow freely BEFORE I did anything because there was already a raised area along the fence line due to mowing on either side of it for more than 50 years and organic matter building up along fence line. If we have to make sure there is no water on her side WHILE it’s raining then that is something we cannot fix no matter what we do because her yard has poor drainage. The problem is on HER side.”
That is the end of my communication with Mike on February 20, 2020. You will notice that I am sending the same content over and over. That’s because people from the County keep claiming not to have it. The content in the last email I sent on February 20, 2020 has been in Mike’s possession since July 30, 2019 and has been public on this blog since July 30, 2019. (See it here: Drainage Problems Are Bringing Tom and Me to Court) This is the same evidence Mike looked at in court on July 30, 2019 and used it to dismiss the charges against us.
On February 20, 2020, Mike claimed not have this information. He asked me to send it again (you’ll read later on February 24 he criticized me for sending too many emails). I have asked him why in eight months he could not view it. I asked him why he did not remember looking at it with us on court in July 30 2019. He said he didn’t understand the case. He said he could not look at videos because they might have viruses. It can’t have viruses if it’s on YouTube, but okay fine. When he was here on Thursday February 20 I suggested looking at it on my phone or my computer. He refused and left.
I have to end this for now and get some actual work done, you’ll hear more about what happened on Monday, February 24 and why I’m resigned to going to court again. There isn’t going to be any way out of it so I’m going to thoroughly document the process here so it will all be in one place when it’s time.
Hours spent so far on our defense: 36.83
On Sunday, February 23, I went out to work on the garden and see what could be done to draw more water over to our side of the fence since Mike told us we have to draw all the water over from her yard even while it’s raining. Knowing that is not possible, since he told me to do it I thought I’d at least show we tried so that when we are in court I can show I am not just ignoring the problem. I made the bio-swales on our side bigger, and planted additional Louisiana Iris and Blue Mistflower (Conoclinium coelestinum). Those are hardy perennials that tolerate wet periods. Only the Iris is going to be visible right now because the Blue Mistflower dies down to the ground in winter and is not quick to get started in the spring. But it’s native and beautiful and very well suited to this purpose so worth the wait.
Monday morning the 24th it was raining and out of curiosity I went to see how the wet areas were performing. There was no visible water on her side even DURING the rain which I did not think was really possible. I thought Mike and his boss would like to see this.
I sent this email to Michael Hite and John Geiler on February 24 at 8:18 am.
“Inspector Mike told us that even though the water originates on our neighbor’s side of the fence, it’s not good enough that the water drains completely into our yard after the rain is over, it has to be completely on our side even WHEN it is raining. Sounds impossible, so it makes me wonder what is really going on, but we gave it a try anyway and it looks like we succeeded, I took this photo a few minutes ago during actual rain.
Our side (7405) is on the right. Note water on right side, not the left (7409). Is this good enough?”
At 8:14 John responded and copied his reply to Mike.
“As long as there is nothing in your back yard that alters the natural flow of water from the uphill properties to the storm water inlet at the bottom of the hill. That is the natural swale and cannot be altered according to the ordinance. Any alterations would have to be approved by the Zoning Department with a request for a variance.
John”
I replied asking if he could call me to tell me exactly what this means. I have made the water flow better since I started my garden, but his directive is vague enough that I wanted to clarify exactly what I need to do. Obviously he was available so all it would take is one phone call from him to find out exactly what we are supposed to do and get this whole thing over with. I was hopeful that it was finally going to be over.
The phone rang and I was happy to be able to get some clear information finally. But it was Mike berating me for sending the email, and telling me he would not look at it and told me not to send any more.
So clearly we are being set up to fail and we have no choice but to go on the offensive and pursue what legal remedies are possible. That’s what I’m working on next.
I sent this email to Michael Hite and John Geiler on February 24 at 3:01 pm.
“Ok I know you guys are not interested in any information from me, but you might be interested in a solution.
I’ll fill the bioswale with mulch so the water can still pass through somewhat. In the short term, this will likely make water stay in the neighbor’s yard more. That’s how it was before but you want things returned to the way they were before so that should be ok. I’ll keep adding plants, but since a lot of perennial plants die back in the winter I will need to plant in the mulch either winter scouring rush, bamboo, or something else that stays erect and green all year long and keeps absorbing water all year round. Winter scouring rush (Equisetum hyemale) is a native plant so we don’t have to worry about it being invasive. That way once they start growing they should suck up more of the water. I think more diverse plants and shorter plants would be more attractive to both us and the neighbor, but we are not going to be allowed to do that so I have to suck up as much water as
quickly as possible and winter scouring rush is a better choice than invasive bamboo so I’ll try that first. Winter scouring rush should stay green most of the year – I have seen it green in February while picking up trash on Simpson lake after the 2015 flood during Operation Clean Stream.
You most likely won’t have read this, so when you take us to court I’ll inform the judge that I offered this to you as a solution on February 24, 2020. I will continue to document all our communications on our blog as well. And the judge will be given a list of when you had what information. I can’t make you read it but I can document that at least.
I don’t know how you expect people to find a workable solution when you come to person’s house, refuse to look at evidence, ask me to email it, so I do, then you don’t read it, berate me for sending it and inform me you will not read it. Yesterday I made more changes and I sent you a photo this morning and asked if that meets the requirements. I requested a phone call to see if that was sufficient. Instead of just answering my question, I got a call saying no one will look at the email and not to send any more. So you refuse to work with me at all and the judge will be told that. I don’t know if she will care, but she will be informed of each communication, what date, and what was the response. You have decided we are guilty without a trial and have informed us that your are not interested in any evidence we might present and when we fix something you will not look at what we did. So that’s what I will tell the judge in court, and will be telling anyone who will listen to us. Which may be nobody, but I will still tell it.”
This was to show I’m working to still try to solve this to show that I’m acting in good faith, although it’s clear there is nothing I can do to satisfy these people. In contrast, what has our neighbor done since last summer to try to fix her illegal pipes? Absolutely nothing. But we are the ones who are going to have to go to court and if we don’t my husband can be arrested.
I got a response from Michael Hite on February 25 at 11:19 am. It was copied to John Geiler.
“Carolyn,
Thanks for the e-mail, I did read it. I will be in contact with neighbor to discuss the matter further. If you would like to talk to your neighbor that would help also.
Mike H.”
I sent this response at 2:56 pm.
“Thank you for your reply. I don’t believe talking to her will resolve anything. If she approaches me I will not turn her away but I knew after last July that talking to her was useless. You know how she likes to call you on the only day of the week that we are normally both gone? She must not want me to talk to you like I did last Thursday. If she really wanted to resolve this in a reasonable way she would want me to talk to you and not try to have you come only when we’re not here. I want to talk to you but you aren’t interested in talking to me. Neither is your boss. I have written to my County Council representative, the County Executive and several media outlets. I don’t know how many of those will care. I don’t have many options open to me. I’m proceeding with the options that are open to me on the advice of my attorney.
Last summer before we had even had our first court date, my husband and I were gone on our honeymoon in Yellowstone Park. There was a flash flood warning from the city of Brentwood (I got it on my phone in Yellowstone so I know what day it was). She knew we couldn’t talk to you or explain what is going on. She probably didn’t know where we were but my Jeep is normally parked on the driveway so she knew we were out of town. She called you when there was a flash flood so it would look like there was a bad water problem. How do I know this? A citation from you with that exact date on it.
I have fixed everything she asked me to fix. I had the drainage problem (if there ever was one, which I’m skeptical about) fixed by sundown on May 4, 2019. I don’t know why she wants to keep harassing us. I don’t know why you go along with it. I didn’t know either of you before this started. I can’t see how I have wronged either of you in any way in the past but you are both determined to harass me and my husband. I know why she hates my husband (her friend sued him), but I never talked to her in my life until I went over to talk to her on May 4 to ask her why she called you and to see if we could work something out. She refused every one of my suggestions so I just changed the specific things she mentioned and tried to leave her alone. I’m out in the backyard pretty often and she’s rarely out there. If we are both out there at the same time I used to smile and say Hi but I’m done with that, now I just turn my back and go about my business. There is nothing I can do to make her happy since the source of the excess water is on her side. I have done almost everything I can do. Based on advice from my attorney, I’m doing what is left available to me. It will take time to go through all the steps. Whatever you do to us in the future I will react to in a way so as to defend us against further financial damage. We are already thousands in the hole from her excess water. My goal is to prevent further financial damage and I will do whatever is necessary and also ethical and legal to defend ourselves. We didn’t start this but if necessary I will finish it.”
Update February 27, 2020
On February 25, at 10:59 am I sent this email to p3@stlousco.com
“I live at 7405 Rockwood Drive, St. Louis MO, 63123. Our neighbor, Diane Broy at 7409 Rockwood has been discharging water onto our driveway. We have already had to have the driveway replaced in 2018. She is still running water over our driveway. When it freezes it’s a hazard and we don’t want our new driveway to get ruined, it was expensive. Thank you for your time.”
On February 25 at 11:10 am, I sent a message to the 5th District St. Louis County Representative, Lisa Clancy. I got a response from Legislative Assistant Carter Gibson at February 26 at 10:35 am. My message follows.
“Our neighbor is discharging excess water onto our property in several places and we keep getting harassed by the county inspectors for having water. Instead of getting her to divert her water, they blame us. We are about to have to go to court for the second time. Even though the charges against us were dismissed the first time, they want to bring them again but our neighbor has not changed anything. I don’t understand why this is happening and I’m reaching out to anyone who might be interested in looking at it. The supervisor of the the inspectors, John Geiler is not interested and will not respond to my inquiries.
Thank you!”
Carter Gibson responded that he would contact the Problem Properties division and let me know the verdict. I sent him a link to this blog log so they all have the current, updated information.
A friend of mine who is in the real estate business prepared this image for me of 7409 and 7405 Rockwood with notations she made. She has given me permission to post it and her anonymous comments follow.
“Here is a satellite view of the home at 7409 Rockwood, St. Louis, MO 63123. This screen shot is from Google Maps. On the lower right corner of the picture note the map data date as being the year 2020 as well as the date and time of the screen shot.
I have added a text box and red arrows indicating all areas paved over.
Note the lack of natural ground surface to absorb water. It appears that at least 80 percent of the entire lot is paved over, offering very little vegetation or natural soil. There is very little grassy area, as opposed to the connecting properties, to absorb water. It’s not surprising that water run-off could leak to surrounding properties.
Also attached is a property sketch from the records of the St. Louis County Department of Revenue on Feb 22, 2020. The property sketch does not indicate the detatched garage in the rear portion of the property which is pictured in a photo from it’s listing in the multiple listing service when entered into the MLS on Aug. 29, 2000 through it’s sale date of Nov. 06, 2000. See attached picture. The tax records also do not indicate what appears to be a storage shed or other out-building of some sort, located next to the garage.
***The property sketch from the Department of Revenue is also depicted incorrectly. Areas ‘A’ and ’C’ are incorrectly labeled compared to the
legend below the sketch.”
My comments on the images above – the supervisor of the inspectors, John Geiler, won’t say anything to me except I can’t block the flow of water from the top of the hill to the bottom of the hill. I haven’t done that. My neighbor at 7409 has. As you can see the house did not originally have a garage or most of the yard paved. Why are we being repeatedly accused, since May, of doing what someone else did and cited for it and taken to court? I can’t get an answer from anyone. I have been trying to find out what is going on since May 2019. Obviously I am missing some vital information and I’m doing as much investigating as I can. As you can see this information is from St. Louis County. Why can’t they look at their own data in 9 months? Are they confused about which house they are talking about? Why do we have to waste hours and hours of time when they could just look at their own data or look at what I send them?
I sent the above diagram to Michael Hite and John Geiler on Februay 27, at 9:30 am. My understanding is they will not look at it but I want the judge to know I tried.
Time spent on our defense since May 2019: 40.35 hours
Update March 9, 2020
I received this email on Friday, March 6.
“Dear Ms. Hasenfratz,
As a result of your inquiry to the County Executive, I asked that your case be reviewed again from a different perspective. The Department of Public Works sent a new inspector from a different division to visit the property and review the findings. The new inspector seems to have reached the same conclusion. Essentially, the raised flower bed is blocking the flow of water at the property line and the cut made in the bed is not adequate resulting in the backing up of water onto your neighbor’s lot.
Just to reiterate from my previous note, the inspectors are tasked with enforcing St. Louis County ordinances. The County Executive’s office does not have the ability to overturn decisions from inspectors on various citations of the ordinances. I am sorry I do not have better news and was not able to provide the results you seek. Unfortunately, the Court may be the best place to resolve this dispute.
Best,
Matt McLaughlin
Constituent Services Manager
Office of the St. Louis County Executive
Mmclaughlin@stlouisco.com
314-615-0217”
I sent this email in reply on Saturday.
“Are Tom (my husband) and I allowed to meet with the inspector in person and go over all the evidence with him or her and discuss solutions since the problem existed before we did anything and the law says we are allowed to take emergency measures to protect our property. We can prove our foundation and house are crumbling because of the excess water from our neighbor. I would also like to know if our neighbor has to stop her discharge?
Thank you.
Carolyn Hasenfratz Winkelmann”
Time spent on our defense since May 2019: 40.85 hours
Update March 10, 2020
Email reply from Matt McLaughlin on March 10.
“I am inclined to think there will not be a change of heart from the inspectors at Public Works regardless of further meetings and discussions. Again, I do believe the Court may be the inevitable result of this impasse. That said, you are welcome to request a meeting directly to the department if you think it would help. I would be happy to provide contact information. I am sorry for how difficult this situation is for you and your husband.
Best,
Matt McLaughlin
Constituent Services Manager
Office of the St. Louis County Executive”
My reply to Matt on March 10:
“Yes please help us set up a meeting. I have been wanting a meeting since last August and they keep refusing. I very much doubt that they really sent another inspector like they told you. There has been no water on the neighbor’s side of the fence at least since May 4 2019, and to claim we are blocking and causing water on her side is false and they can’t have viewed the same thing we are viewing and come up with that conclusion. I don’t understand what is going on but we want to meet with them please. If everything was on the up and up they would not refuse to meet, refuse to talk to me on the phone and then when I see them here in person run away, then ask me to send an email to shut me up, then call me a few days later to tell me not to send emails and if I do they won’t look at them. Something weird is going on. It makes no sense.
They are not behaving the way people behave when they know they are doing the right thing – they are behaving the way people behave when they know they are doing the wrong thing. Did they send you any evidence that they actually did an inspection? Also, if their department is not accountable to the county executive, who are they accountable to? The county council?
Please set up a meeting and thank you.”
Time spent on our defense since May 2019: 41.71 hours
Update 03/15/20
I have uploaded a couple of new videos today. One was taken on March 12, 2020 and the other was taken on March 14, 2020. I mistakenly said in my audio commentary that it was March 12 in the March 14 video. (I guess I hadn’t had enough coffee yet…)
Here is the March 12 video:
My description for the above March 12 video reads: “It appears to me as though the inspectors are trying to protect our neighbor, who is discharging all her rainwater into our yard and causing structural damage to our driveway, foundation and basement. They like to come and inspect while it is raining, so they can say we are trapping rainwater on her side of the fence and to make it look like we are doing something wrong. Her property is uphill from us and the water comes from her side, and we have made it drain better for her. By law we are allowed to take emergency measures to protect our property and even if it was not an emergency we are not breaking any laws, I have read them. We have not impeded the flow of water, we have made it flow better than it did before we started.
There is adequate evidence on that site, both photo and video to prove the problem originates on her side. Yet the county harasses us and appears to be working for her. I don’t understand why that is the case and I am currently in contact with someone at the County Executive’s office. I don’t know how far that line of inquiry is going to lead, but I’m going to keep going up the ladder until someone will agree to look at the evidence. The inspector and the supervisor of the inspectors will not look at it and have instructed me not to send them any emails. They dodge my phone calls. When an inspector came at a time I was home (for the first time in almost a year) when I came out to try to talk to him he would not answer my questions, ran away, told me to send and email, then when I tried to follow up about the contents of the email a few days later, he berated me for sending it and informed me he would not look at any more.
I don’t know why the county is deliberately trying to railroad us, but so far all the evidence I have points to that. If anyone knows anyone in the media who would be interested in investigating please forward this to them.”
And here is the March 14 video:
My description for the above March 14 video reads: “Drainage pipes are supposed to be 10 ft. away from the the property line. I have reported that our neighbor has one four feet away and it is discharging over our driveway. We had to get this driveway replaced in 2018 because the water flow undermined the soil under it and caused a lot of cracks. We are trying to prevent our new driveway from being ruined. I have reported this to St. Louis County formally in August 2019 and February 2020.
Instead of getting her to change it, the county is taking us to court for the measures we have taken to prevent damage to our home from our neighbor’s excess runoff. They blame us for having water when the water comes from her yard. They appear to be working for her and against us, even though she is the one in violation of the law. I don’t know why they are doing this and I am doing as much of my own investigating as I can.
If you know anyone in the media who would be interested in investigating please forward this video to them. Thank you!”
Time spent on our defense since May 2019: 42.5 hours
Update 03/16/20
I sent this message to the county property complaints division this morning:
“Hi, our neighbor at 7409 Rockwood Dr. 63123 has been discharging water onto our driveway and I’ve reported it twice, in August and February. She is still doing it. Here is a video I took on Saturday.
Is there anything you can do to help us? Thank you for your time.”
This is the reply:
“Hello,
It looks like the owner of this property is in correspondence with an inspector. The inspector issued an extension and they have until mid-April to comply.
Thank you.”
So – it looks like things are finally turning in a better direction. What will happen? Stay tuned!
Time spent on our defense since May 2019: 43.6 hours
Recieved to my email on March 17, 2020:
“I have sent your messages to Public Works. I will let you know their response. Just so you know, I have been working long hours dealing with the coronavirus health emergency so much of my constituent cases have been delayed.
Matt
Matt McLaughlin
Constituent Services Manager
Office of the St. Louis County Executive”
My response on March 17, 2020:
“Thank you, the crisis didn’t stop them from coming here though to try to trap us (last Thursday, on video) so I can’t just forget about it. Our basement is in dire straits. You’d think they’d have more important things to deal with right now like you do. I understand what you are dealing with. Thank you for your time!
Carolyn Hasenfratz Winkelmann”
Recieved to my email on March 27, 2020:
“Good morning Mrs. Winkelmann,
Please e-mail in two weeks when it might be safer to meet in person. Also please note that your neighbor is working on removing the ‘drain pipe’ that is pointed at your driveway.
Thanks,
Michael Hite
St. Louis County Building Inspector”
I sent in response on March 27, 2020:
“Great! My husband is working nights now too so he’ll be able to be there too. Thank you very much, I’ll keep that in mind. I’m healthy so far, I hope you and yours are too.
In the meantime, have you read and understand the entire situation? Here are the two blog posts to read to know all the background. Two weeks or so should be plenty of time to read them. If you have any questions as you read please email them to me and I’ll be happy to respond. I can also do a conference call or video conference where I can read it to you paragraph by paragraph and you can respond in real time if necessary.
The most important things to notice as you read I think are the additions to the house next door AFTER it was built and the presence of water and where it collected in both yards BEFORE I modified anything to try to save our house foundation. Please also note the condition of our basement and the cracks on the main floor resulting from the water damage moving the foundation. When you come over you are welcome to see all the cracks in the house in person, upstairs and downstairs.
Mike I’ll add that if you have any worry about looking at my blog on a work computer, I will show it to you on my computer and read it to you paragraph by paragraph and you can stop me if you have any questions as we go. If you are afraid to look at YouTube videos on your own computer I can show them to you on mine.
Carolyn Hasenfratz Winkelmann”
Update 04/30/20
Inspector Michael Hite paid a surprise visit today. We had a cordial and productive discussion about the changes we had made and are making. He said they were sufficient as long as I did not allow mosquito larvae to grow. I showed him the bottle of BTI I keep in the garage and he took a picture of it. He said I should not expect any more trouble unless there is a complaint about mosquito larvae which is not going to happen because I inspect daily and apply BTI regularly (at least every couple of weeks). A perfectly reasonable request which I would abide by anyway without being asked. I still have a small water garden on the deck at my condo which I treat with BTI regularly and have been for years. It’s the right thing to do and it’s not wrong for the County to make sure we’re doing it. He said if there ever is a complaint they will communicate with us and not just send us straight to court without an attempt at resolving it. The status of the neighbor’s illegal pipe discharging on our driveway currently is that she has been given another extension because she has to hire someone to do it and with the virus situation that takes time. That I also find reasonable. It would have been fixed last year if she had accepted my offer to fix it for no charge, but she turned me down so that is where we are. I’m just glad to be able to enjoy our garden now and go ahead on our planned improvements that were halted on May 3, 2019 when the County first came after us. It took just four days short of a year to establish productive two-way communication with the St. Louis County inspector. Who would have ever thought it would take that long? Even I, who admittedly have very low expectations of government standards of performance, did not expect it to take that long.
Anyone out there who finds themselves in a situation like what we just had, here is what I recommend, keeping in mind that I’m not an attorney and not qualified to give legal advice. I’m just relaying what worked for me.
Research the applicable laws before you start work and make sure you’re staying within them.
If you have done that and are still being harassed unfairly, log and save all communications. Get everything in writing that you possibly can.
Keep detailed records and take a lot of pictures and videos with verifiable dates.
If it’s legal to do so where you live, install a video surveillance system that allows you to record incidents and save the videos for later publication if needed. I used the Ring system and so far I am thrilled with the capabilities. Based on my detailed timeline, it seems that video was what made the situation start to turn around for us. If I had known how this would go I would have installed it sooner.
Get guidance from your attorney if you think it is warranted.
Fresh picked salad from the backyard with cherry tomatoes, dill, arugula, chives, romaine, mustard greens, edible flowers and wild greens. I served the produce over cold edamame noodles.
I hope now that the ordeal with our rain garden is over Tom and I can start actually enjoying our garden! One of the many things we like about it is being able to pick fresh salads every day in season. I’m going to be really sad when it gets too cold to do this.
Since I took these photos, this monarch has hatched and is on it’s way to Mexico right now if it has not run into misfortune along the way. I’ve helped raise a bunch of caterpillars this year by providing habitat and I’m really happy about that!
Monarch butterfly caterpillar turning into a chrysalis over a 24 hour period.
Since I welcome caterpillars to my garden, I get species I really want as well as caterpillars that eat some of the greens I want to eat. One of my strategies is to plant enough to share. I also like to encourage beneficial insects that prey on garden pests.
I just left this letter on a neighbor’s door handle:
“August 27, 2019,
Hi, I’m your near neighbor at (address) – the house where the red Jeep is parked a lot. I’m sorry to bother you but I inadvertently caused a weird problem. I saw the landscaping company that does your lawn working at your house this morning. I have an urgent need for mulch, and grass clippings are perfect for my needs. I asked the workers at your house to fill a few containers with grass clippings for me if they were going to dispose of them and leave the containers there and I would just walk across the street and pick them up. I’ve worked as a landscaper so I know most of the time they just put the grass clippings in a big dumpster that goes to the yard waste facility to be processed. I gave them a small tip for their trouble. What I didn’t know is that they didn’t understand that I wanted them to leave the containers out in front of your house for me to pick up when they were done. They brought the containers back to their shop. It’s not their fault – I should have anticipated this and made a note of what company they work for – but I did not do that. Can you please give me an email or a phone call to let me know what company they work for so I can call them and get my containers back? I thought this would be a simple request that would not cause anyone any hassle but I misjudged. I would have given them a lot bigger tip if I expected them to fill the containers at their shop, I just wanted the sweepings since they had to do cleanup anyway!!!
In the spring of 2018, before Tom and I were married and I wasn’t yet living at his house, I started making a garden plan and beginning work on what would become our garden. I could see right away that drainage was a big problem in his yard and the garden plan would need to address it. Tom and I were also very concerned about the state of his basement. There were numerous large cracks and a couple of small rivers that ran across the floor every time it rained. Shortly after our marriage in August of 2018, we hired an engineer to tell us how serious the problems were and what should be done about them. The engineer confirmed our opinion that we needed to keep water away from the the house foundation and seal the cracks. He said this would probably be enough repair if we fixed the drainage problems on the outside of the house. If it got worse, we might need about $10,000.00 worth of pier work. We had the cracks fixed and next went to work on fixing the drainage issues.
Here are three photos of cracks in Tom’s basement that I took on July 29, 2019. The left photo shows a repair that was done some time before I knew Tom. The two right photos are repairs that were done in September 2018.
The garden plan I came up with is mostly my idea and I take responsibility for it. I based my plan on the following sources of information:
2. Completion of training to be a St. Louis and Missouri certified Master Gardener in 2016. (Link to photo of certificate). I have kept my certification current which involves at least 10 hours of continuing education and 40 hours of volunteer work per year.
3. I have attended workshops put on by MSD to learn proper techniques for managing stormwater runoff. Here is an article I wrote after one of the sessions I attended – MSD’s Project Clear and Our Local Water Issues
Relevant quotes from the MSD web page on Rainscaping (link here):
“Stormwater runoff is created by hard surfaces that cannot absorb water, like concrete, the footprint of a house, and compacted soils.”
“This (rainscaping) can be done through any combination of plantings, water features, catch basins, and permeable pavement, among other activities.”
“In a properly designed rain garden, water will soak into the ground within a day or two, long before mosquitoes have the opportunity to breed. They can be designed to attract the kinds of insects and wildlife that feed off mosquitoes, reducing their numbers around your property. Rain gardens can also help eliminate yard ponding, in which water can pool long enough for mosquitoes to multiply.”
“A rain garden gives water runoff a beneficial and safe place to go, helping to keep it away from your foundation where water problems can occur. It can also help reduce or eliminate water ponding on your property. Since rain gardens reduce the amount of stormwater entering the sewer system, they can help prevent basement backups and sewer overflows.”
Rock weirs – I have installed two of them at the Southeast corner of the property so that if there is any runoff that overtops the dry well at the end of the rain garden, soil will not be lost into the street.
Bioswale/Rain Garden – I have made several of these and am in the process of planting them with rainscaping plants to absorb more of the rainwater than the clay soil can currently absorb. Quantities and names of rain garden plants that I have added:
Lawn alternatives – we are allowing four different kinds of water-loving groundcover grow in place of turfgrass in parts of the lawn close to areas that collect water.
Soil amendments and mulching – we have added 13 cubic yards of soil (that’s a whole dump truck load) from St. Louis Compost that is 50% compost to improve the water absorption ability of our clay soil. So far we have added half a pickup truck bed full of mulch with more to come.
5. I read over the St. Louis County guidelines for land disturbance. We are within the guidelines because we are disturbing less than 30 square yards, less than 2000 square feet, are doing residential landscaping in a one family dwelling and have provided safeguards against erosion (the dry well and rock weirs).
6. I consulted with the owner of a landscaping company that I worked for part time for two years doing consulting and labor on client’s properties.
Here are some pictures that document what the yard looked like before we started working on it:
North West and North areas of our yard on March 27, 2018 showing that we had problems with standing water before I started any rainscaping. Also note that the neighbor’s yard accumulated standing water before I did any rainscaping. Here is a link to the shared photos to prove the date I took the pictures: Tom’s Yard March 2018
The image on the left of this pair shows water collecting around the house foundation on March 27, 2018. The right photo shows water collecting around the house foundation on November 1, 2018. Here is a link to the shared photos to prove the date I took the picture on the right: Tom’s Yard November 2018
Here is a graphic that shows where the neighbor’s water discharge pipes are located (red) and the area of our yard that was prone to collect water (blue) before I started rainscaping.
Yes I drew on the satellite picture where the neighbor’s drainpipes are and where the water collecting areas were. Don’t just take my word for it. Here are some videos showing the water flow happening in real time during a rainstorm. These videos were shot on July 1, 2019.
https://youtu.be/UIGlDAK3McY – the two back downspouts in the neighbor’s backyard are shown. I don’t know if you can tell from the video, but in addition to the drainpipes being aimed at our yard, the neighbor’s yard is sloped downward to drain directly into our backyard.
https://youtu.be/usO0kYKr7Ko – this video shows how the front drainage pipe is aimed right at our driveway. We had to have our driveway replaced in November of 2018 due to cracks and damage caused by years of this water flowing over it and freezing and thawing in the cracks.
Here is a link to photos I took on November 1, 2018 showing new driveway and other pictures around the house foundations. November 1, 2018
https://youtu.be/Up2nHlhyf_c – here is a video showing how wet the backyard gets and how I connected the neighbor’s low spot to ours to faciliate drainage of her yard and to avoid interrupting the flow from one yard to another.
These photos were both taken on July 1, 2019. As you can see, the area was dry before it rained. Here is a link to the photos I took on July 1 before and after it rained so you can verify the date and that the photos were taken on the same day and that the rain garden areas do drain in between rains like they are designed to. Also note that the neighbor’s yard and our yard drain better than they did before I did any rainscaping work and the areas of standing water are smaller than they were on the March 27, 2018 photos. As I get more plants in the bioswales and rain gardens and the existing plants get bigger and the soil continues to improve, the ground will absorb water even faster in the future. As I add plants I add humus and the plant roots penetrate the clay below to facilitate drainage. The 235 plants I already have are doing a good job. More are coming, but it’s not easy to get anything to grow in clay and you can’t do transplants into clay and expect them to live during the hottest time of summer. July 1, 2018
My garden plan was designed to help alleviate the following problems:
1. Soil is almost all clay and absorbs very little water.
2. Clay soil not only resists absorbing water, it expands and shrinks in wet and dry weather causing cracking in the foundation.
3. The existing soil cannot absorb the runoff from our own house. In addition, the majority of the drainage from the neighbor’s property to the west is directed onto our property so that we not only have our runoff to deal with, we have most of hers too.
4. Our back patio and back sidewalk were tilted toward the foundation directing water right into the cracks and making them worse. In addition, since they were solid concrete they inhibited water from being naturally absorbed into the soil.
I decided to draw up a plan that addressed these issues and employed rainscaping techniques because my conscience will not allow me to direct water right into the storm sewers when I know that MSD is spending billions of dollars to try to alleviate flooding in our area caused by too much storm runoff AND I’m well aware of how to manage our own storm water responsibly and avoid contributing to flooding and poor water quality downstream from us. How much damage has been done across the Midwest this spring and summer by floods? We’re trying to deal with our excess storm water in a way which does not just push the problem onto someone else. I know most people don’t take our neighbors downstream from us into consideration when making landscaping choices but we are not those kind of people.
Here is a 3 page PDF file showing the first citation, the summons to go to court, and the second citation. We took care of the invasive honeysuckle within two weeks, and the bricks before sundown the next day. Please note the dates of these three documents – May 20, June 25 and July 23. I am confused about why we have to go to court when we fixed the problems mentioned in the first citation in the time limit set by the county. The court summons was issued on June 25 when the work was completed by May 31 (to clarify, the bricks were fixed by sundown May 4 and the invasive honeysuckle trimmings by May 31 as required in the first citation). Furthermore, I also don’t understand why we got another citation before even having the court date yet.
Here in summary here are the reasons why I do not believe we deserve any citations or fines from St. Louis County:
The next door neighbor who called the county to say she doesn’t like our garden admitted to me that she called because she thinks it’s ugly, not because it was causing her any problems. She revealed this after I offered her some of the dirt we bought from St. Louis Compost to help her raise her wet spot (which existed before our rainscaping as you have seen) and some premium grass seed with really long roots to help absorb water. You can’t get this grass in big box stores, the hybrid is only sold in select garden centers. I couldn’t understand why she was refusing and she said she just thought our garden was ugly. Her yard is much uglier in my opinion and one of the reasons I’ve planted plants along the fence is to hide the view of her yard. You can see from the videos that her yard is full of invasive weeds, concrete, trash cans, brush piles, yard tools and the like.
Ugly is kind of in the eye of the beholder isn’t it? This photo was taken on July 30, 2019. On the left is a very nice Assumption Lily in our neighbor’s yard with invasive weeds (Mimosa, Japanese Honeysuckle) around it. On the right we have an unplanted area on our side of the fence in the foreground and an herb garden barely begun behind it. So far we’re growing in this section Bronze Fennel, Garlic Chives, Peppermint and Korean Hyssop and protecting the soil in the unplanted areas with mulch. Which side is uglier? If different people were to give different answers it would not surprise me.
We could have sued this neighbor for ruining our old driveway. We didn’t do this because we thought peaceful relations with neighbors were more important. This is what we get in thanks for that. I never spoke to her until I went over to ask her why she called the county on us instead of just asking us to fix what she didn’t like. It’s not like I went out of my way to cause problems with her. My computer desk faces her back yard and I’ve observed her glaring at me before through the window but since we never spoke I had no idea what her problem was.
We have improved the drainage in her yard and the neighbor on the other side of us no longer has our runoff going over his driveway, therefore we have helped the lifespan of his driveway and possibly saved him thousands of dollars. (We know how much it costs because we just got one.) We disagree that we have caused a drainage nuisance to our neighbors, rather we have provided a solution to an existing problem and both of their properties have been helped at no cost to them.
Water does not stay in the rain garden areas long enough to grow mosquito larvae so we don’t agree that we have caused a nuisance there either. As you can see from the photos I showed you, we already had a worse standing water problem BEFORE the rain garden was started. Some breeds of mosquitoes can breed in as little as a teaspoon of water. You can see from the photos that we had a lot more than a teaspoon of standing water BEFORE I started the garden. It also hung around a lot longer than one or two days. As a precaution I also treat the water when it occurs with BTI (Bacillus thuringiensis serotype israelensis) just in case we have more than a normal amount of rain for a few days. This makes our yard and neighborhood SAFER from mosquitoes than before we did anything – therefore we believe we should receive commendations for what we have done, not citations. Since we have improved the existing situation, we don’t agree that we have created a nuisance.
Here are three areas of the rain garden that I consider finished or nearly so. These photos were taken July 30, 2019. They have been planted with plants that can take varying water levels and clay soil. Their roots improve water penetration into the ground. I also added some better soil and mulch after planting. As you can see there is no standing water, even though it rained at least three times yesterday.
The day before we received our first notice from the county, (May 2) I was out in the front yard working and I saw a St. Louis County work truck slow down in front of our house. The driver stared me down and gave me a foul look. She stepped on the gas and sped off. She didn’t even stop the truck all the way. If this is what passes as an inspection it’s no wonder the inspectors don’t understand the drainage situation and how the rain garden fixed most of it (still have to work out the driveway pipe situation so our new driveway doesn’t get ruined – was hoping to do it peacefully but quickly losing hope for that.) Note that the first inspection document says the yard was inspected on or around May 20, but the day we actually got the citation on our door was on May 3. (Strangely enough, on a Friday, the only day of the week we are both gone all day at the same time, and also the day after the county truck came by – suspicious enough behavior that I made a note of the date.) If everything is above board, why is stealth necessary? How do the inspectors know if there is standing water if they “inspect” on May 2 or 3 but claim it’s really May 20, when we go through long periods when it rains nearly every day? If the inspectors make a point of only coming on days when it rains or are not truthful about what days they come of course they can make claims that are misleading (if that’s what they are trying to do). Yesterday (July 29) it rained three times. There will probably be a time when we won’t have any standing water even during rain – when our soil is better. Remember we were starting with clay – we did not strip off good soil and cause these problems, the problems were decades in the making and started when these homes were built (in the 1950s). We paid over $350.00 to St. Louis Compost to ADD good soil.
Improving our soil. From left to right: Taking delivery of a full dump truck of 50% compost soil from St. Louis Compost on May 2. A full dump truck load is 13 cubic yards. 2nd photo – Tom spreading soil over where the old concrete patio was on May 6. We took out the concrete patio to make the ground more permeable so there is less standing water. Soil and mulch will be here until we are ready to install a new patio. It will be made of permeable pavers or mulch so we don’t bring back the previous drainage problems. 3rd photo – Picking up mulch in a rented pickup truck. Mulch makes soil drain better and protects it from erosion and compaction.
The large hole next to the future patio will become our new pond and waterfall area. We will stick to the county determined limit of 24″ of depth. It will have a liner, filter, aquatic plantings, two waterfalls and all the bells and whistles. We wish it was done already too. It takes time and money to build. For example I could have been working on that the last couple of days but so far I have spent 9 hours working on a defense for our court date and I’m not done yet. Plus there is the time we have to actually go. That’s a lot of hours that we aren’t getting useful work done. Edit: total time I spent on defending us in court was 17.4 hours.
The inspectors, if they come at all, seem to only come by when we aren’t home. Our neighbor can easily tell when we aren’t home and can tip them off. Therefore they can’t ask us questions and we can’t explain. That makes me suspicious about what is really going on. Yes completing our garden plan takes time. I don’t know of any construction sites that look good during the whole project. If construction sites had to be shut down every time it rained and there was a puddle or it looked ugly to someone nothing would ever get done. I think we are being treated unfairly and unethically and are not guilty of any violations. I’m considering setting up a webcam to see what the county people look at in our yard assuming they come at all so that we can defend ourselves more effectively. Should I spend this money on more garden improvements or more surveillance technology? Which will protect us more from fines and having to go to court? Questions I’m asking myself.
We don’t mind dealing with our neighbor’s runoff responsibly when she won’t, because the most important thing is that it gets done, but I think it’s wrong for us to be punished for it. When I talked to her to try to work out what she was really upset about she complained that our garden was ugly, that she had water in her basement, and her property taxes were too high. I can do something about making the garden less “ugly”, but I can’t do anything about her basement or property taxes. I don’t see why we should be punished for those things. We had the same problems in our basement and instead of attacking her we just fixed it and now we are being dragged into court for it. I have a co-worker who lives a few houses away and has water in his basement too. The whole neighborhood probably does because the whole neighborhood is built on clay. We’re trying to do something proactive and neighborly about it.
If we have not already addressed all the court’s concerns please inform us of how you would like us to proceed in order not to be fined. We’d rather spend the money on garden and property improvements. We still have a lot to do. My garden plan was intended to be a multi-year project. Phase 1 was expected to take three years. The more times we have to stop and go to court the longer it will take.
Update July 31, 2019
Last night in court the charges against us were dismissed. As for the second citation from July 23, it appears that our neighbor waited until we were on vacation and there was a day with a lot of storms to call the county inspector again and say there was standing water in our yard. Of course there is when she has directed nearly all her runoff to our yard. I thought of filling the bioswale areas that didn’t have plants in them yet with mulch so this didn’t happen when we were gone, but I wanted to be home when I tried this in case the storm water pushed the mulch around too much and made dams that would cause worse problems. I did expect her to try something when we were on vacation but I’m surprised the county inspectors go along with it and don’t see what she has done to us by directing her runoff to our yard. The county is displeased that we interrupted the flow of water from her yard to ours, but her entire yard is a barrier to water flow. You can see from the satellite photo that it is concrete from one end of the yard to the other, and we got taken to court for about 10 bricks in a raised bed that took 10 minutes (or less) to remove. Well the inspector was also on vacation last night, so the county inspector helping out in court last night gave me his email address so I forwarded the this article to him. I had no way of contacting him before to explain what is going on. I hope after this he will just talk to us. In the meantime, I have no problem with putting some mulch in the bioswales that don’t yet have plants and don’t yet absorb water very well. They would still be porous and function as designed until I can get more plants in. It will take a little time for new mulch to get “sticky” and “spongy” and absorb water well so I’ll need to keep a close eye on it.
Update August 15, 2019
This was left on our door August 15. This is promising. I have a specific person I can contact with a phone number. I’m going to call him tomorrow morning. How do you think the conversation will go? Any predictions? I’ll let you know what happens!
Update August 19, 2019
I called and left a message for Anthony V. and he called me back within an hour or two. He sounds like a great guy, nice and reasonable and professional like the other inspector who helped us out in court on July 31st. At first he was talking to me about a different property and then he remembered which was the right property and told me I have to fill in the rain garden. It’s clear he didn’t read the article above that I emailed to him, or if he did he didn’t remember it. I explained to him the drainage issues the rain garden was designed to repair. I explained the damage to our house and driveway and how we had already spent thousands and were trying to prevent spending thousands more. I explained how the neighbor’s runoff is directed into our yard. I asked him to email to me a copy of the St. Louis County policy on rain gardens so that I could see what I was in violation of because I know of many rain gardens in St. Louis County and some of them are huge and they don’t seem to be a problem. He said that was covered under the land disturbance guidelines and I told him I had read those and I was following the restrictions in there. (I have a link to the Land Disturbance Guidelines above). He said he’d talk to his supervisor and get back to me. I missed his next voicemail which was not too long after and I gave him a return voicemail message so we are playing phone tag. I don’t know what the message is other than to call him. I gave him my email address so he can email me the statute I’m violating (assuming there is one). If I’m going to fight it in court I need to know what it is first! I’m very glad we can communicate instead of Tom and I just finding “nastygrams” saying see you in court that are dropped off when we aren’t home.
Before we got off the phone, I asked him how to report the neighbor’s drainage pipes discharging onto our property. He said to report any that are closer than 10 ft to the main office. So I measured the four pipes in question and there are two closer than 10 feet. I opened my measuring tape to 10 feet and took these pictures to illustrate.
I reported to the Neighborhood Services main office. I know it seems incredibly stupid and petty to be measuring the neighbor’s pipes and reporting how close they are. This is what I’m forced to do because our neighbor was not content to let us deal with her excess stormwater at no cost to her. She is the one who involved the County, so now they are involved. I would have much preferred to not involve the government and waste taxpayer’s money, I’m sure they have much more important things to do. I’ll let you know what happens!
https://stlouisco.com/Property-and-Roads/Neighborhood-Services
Total time I’ve spent up to this point on our defense: 18.5 hours
Update August 20, 2019
Here is the answer I got from St. Louis County about the neighbor’s pipes being too close:
“St Louis County has no jurisdiction in Marlborough you will have to contact Marlborough concerning this matter. St Louis County only covers unincorporated areas .”
I thought we were in an unincorporated area, but if we are not, why is St. Louis County hassling us about our garden? Why is St. Louis County in charge one day and not the next day? When I have time, I’ll put in calls to Anthony, St. Louis County main office at the County and Marlborough City Hall and see where that goes.
Turns out don’t need to the above that just yet – response from County is we are unincorporated, St. Louis County has jurisdiction, and the complaint has been entered.
A little later I got a voice mail message from Anthony saying he talked to his supervisor and we have to get rid of the rain garden. I left a phone message for him asking him to send me a copy of the specific law we are violating and the name, phone number and email address of his supervisor. That’s the second time I requested a copy of the specific law. I have searched for things like “rain gardens St. Louis County guidelines” and “rain gardens St. Louis County restrictions” and I have found nothing.
Total time I’ve spent up to this point on our defense: 19.5 hours
Update August 23, 2019
Over the last couple of days I have contacted a lot of environmental organizations who might have in interest in this process and I asked them for advice and also if they have heard anything about rain gardens being illegal in St. Louis County. So far no one has let me know that they have heard it’s illegal. Some people are still looking for information or people for me to contact. I’m following up on contacts people have given me. So far the most specific advice is to request a copy of the actual law they think I am breaking. I have requested that twice this week and still don’t have it. I have asked the inspector I’ve been dealing with to also send me the name and contact information of his supervisor. I don’t have that yet either. He has my email address, I have given it to him at least twice, once by phone and once by email.
“Hi, inspector Anthony Vecchio left a notice on my door on August 15 saying he wanted to talk to me about our property at 7405 Rockwood Drive. I have spoken to him on the phone and he says that his supervisor told him that I have to get rid of my rain garden. I have not been able to find any information online about what my rain garden is violating. He said it was covered by the Guidelines for Land Disturbance which I have read and I haven’t been able to find anything in that document that we are violating. I asked him twice earlier this week for the specific law and I also asked him for the name and contact information for his supervisor. I have not received either yet.
I have contacted a great number of environmental organizations in the area for advice. I have also contacted MSD, Project Clear and Missouri Botanical Garden since they advocate for building rain gardens and I know that MSD has spent a lot of money testing and promoting rain gardens. What I have heard back so far is that they don’t know anything about rain gardens being illegal and I should request a copy of the specific statute that they are concerned with. I have requested that twice, on Tuesday and Wednesday and I don’t have it yet. I’ve also requested the name and contact information of the supervisor of Anthony Vecchio and I have not been provided with that information yet. Can you please send me those items ASAP? Thank you very much for your time!”
It rained a lot on Wednesday evening (Aug. 21), enough to necessitate the City of Brentwood (where I used to live and still own a condo) sending me flash flood warnings on my phone and in my email. I checked the rain gardens and bioswales to see how they were draining. They did look like they were probably on track to drain within 1 to 2 days if it didn’t rain again, but I realized I needed to take action because Tom and I are both going to be at work on Friday and I thought it likely that on that day we would get another inspection to try to catch us out and accuse us of having stagnant water. The last time I got a flash flood notice (July 22 when we were in Yellowstone National Park) we got another citation (see the July 23 document in the PDF file linked above) the day after. AND it looked like it was going to rain again. I can’t skip work to intercept the inspectors and try to explain the situation so I did my best to give the rain gardens a prophylactic treatment just in case.
First I put BTI in all the areas where water was present on August 22 (the day after the heavy rain) as a safeguard against mosquitoes. This biological control needs to be reapplied every couple of weeks and these areas have been bone dry for awhile so I wanted to re-innoculate. The BTI is the brown crumbles floating on the surface.
This area tends to collect water when it rains because I had to make it big enough to completely drain the wet spot on the neighbor’s side of the fence since the county has made us responsible for the runoff from the yard to the West. I have planted some water loving plants on the edge and more are coming to help dry this area faster. That has to wait until the weather is cool enough for transplants. Hopefully won’t be too long.
The next thing I did to speed up the drying in spots like the above was to weed along the edges so that more sunlight can get to it when the sun does come back out. I also made the bioswale that drains it a bit bigger to draw more water out into the grass.
Until I can get more transplants in, I have to make the clay soil more permeable. I used a metal pole to drive holes into the bottoms of the bioswales and rain gardens. Then I sprinkled in some organic matter in the form of wood chip mulch and dried up plant debris that we use as mulch. I kept adding organic matter until the water disappeared. Unfortunately it started to rain again before I could finish and the water level went up again, temporarily. The rain fell slowly enough that I didn’t inadvertently cause dams where I didn’t want them. In time micro-organisms and fungi will help the mulch stick together and be more sponge-like.
This picture was taken after poking holes and applying BTI, but before adding mulch and organic matter. In the spring I created meanders in the bottom of this part of the rain garden to slow the water further. Meandering streams run more slowly and deposit more silt than straight streams. Kind of fun to make this happen in miniature!
I can speed the process up some by adding organic fertilizer that contains nitrogen and maybe an innoculation of untilled mature soil or a product designed to accelerate compost. When it dries out a little I’ll try this. I have some blood meal and a really good product called Love Your Soil by Jonathan Green that helps loosen bad soil. I did this process once before in late spring or early summer and it helped a great deal. Over time, as I drive in more holes the plants will have more soft spots to push roots into and break up the clay. Some of the native plants I’m putting in are adapted to penetrating clay with their roots alone which can only help.
Total time I’ve spent up to this point on our defense: 25 hours
Here is some correspondence that will catch you up on where we are today:
August 23rd, 2019, Anthony Vecchio to me
Mrs. Winklemann,
In regards to your inquiry regarding the notice of violation you received for the trenches dug around your property, the code violation specified is listed on the notice that was posted on your door and mailed to you. No grade may be altered in a way that prevents the natural flow of water or causes stagnant water theron. Should you have any further questions, please contact my supervisor Mr. John Gieler. He may be reached by calling 615-4100 where you can be directed to his extension.
Sincerely,
Anthony Vecchio
Inspector
August 23rd, 2019, Me to Anthony Vecchio
Mr. Vecchio,
We have not prevented the flow of water or caused stagnant water. Rather we have prevented standing water and facilitated the flow of water from one property to the next. The water flows better than before, therefore we have not made the problem worse or created it. If we fill in the rain garden the problems that you think we caused will come back and then we’ll get in trouble for that. The evidence is in the document I sent you on July 31. Here it is again:
If you have not done so, please read it, look at the pictures and watch the videos. Then you will understand what is going on. Then please send me the rules I am violating. It’s not in the Land Disturbance Document. There is nothing in there that says you can’t have a rain garden, there is nothing in there that says you can’t fix existing problems with standing water and there is nothing in there that says you can’t make the water flow better and stop puddling in the neighbor’s yard. It does not say you can’t capture your runoff to keep it from going on your neighbor’s driveway so it doesn’t buckle like ours did. What you are saying we did is what it was like BEFORE we started fixing it.
If you send me the email of your supervisor I will send him a link to it also. I got his name from someone else at the county and I have his phone number. I can’t call him now because I am at work. I have contacted him on Facebook and LinkedIn in the meantime. I will call him Monday if needed. We are not willing to go back to having a wet basement and the house falling in. There are cracks upstairs that have not gotten worse since we fixed the drainage problems. We put a piece of tape at the end of one of the cracks to check. We care a lot about keeping our house erect and intact and we like the dry basement. I don’t think it’s legal to occupy a house falling in either. We would be negligent if we did not fix it.
Thank you very much,
Carolyn Hasenfratz Winkelmann
This is the site of the future pond. I’ve been filling it in with mulch between rains until we get it done. This makes more work for us and makes it take longer to get done, but it’s what we have to do. Does every construction site in St. Louis County have to fill in every puddle between rains, even if they dry up in a day or two? This photo was taken on August 25, about 24 hours ago. It’s rained three times since then. If it’s not dry right now, about an hour after the rain stopped, should we have to go to court again? What do you think?
August 26th, 2019, John L. Geiler to me
Mrs. Winkelmann,
I have contacted the County prosecutors and we will refrain from pressing charges at this time. The ordinance number that you have not been looking at is:
SLCRO 1110.507.1 General. Drainage of roofs, paved areas, yards and courts, and other open areas on the premises shall not be modified or altered to discharge in a manner that creates a public nuisance.
Should a complaint come in about a public nuisance created by the ditches you’ve dug in your husband’s yard we will be required by law to re-issue the NOV and seek compliance. If you want to create a “rain garden” at some time in the future, and the necessary changes involved with that process are in violation of County ordinances, you will need to seek a special use permit or a zoning variance. Those actions can be taken by visiting the Public Works office in Clayton and presenting plans for your installation.
John L. Geiler
Assistant Chief Residential Inspector
St. Louis County Public Works
Code Enforcement
(314) 615-4191
August 26th, 2019, Me to John L. Geiler
Hi, thank you very much for your reply. I read the ordinance many times. The neighbor’s yard has drained completely every time it rains since May 3. (my edit – that’s the day after her complaint and therefore the day I started checking after each and every rain). Her yard used to collect water as ours did BEFORE I did anything. She told me the reason she complained is that she thought it was ugly. I will concede that most construction sites are ugly when they are in progress.
She is the one who caused a nuisance for US. It’s actually the other way around according to the law you cited. This blog post will explain. I couldn’t get Anthony to look at it as far as I know. Mike looked at it and he understood it. That’s why the charges were dismissed.
I’m sure you are very busy today with the flash floods and all. Please look at it when you have time. If someone would just read it and look at the pictures and watch the videos they would understand the situation. At any time you are welcome to make an appt. with me and I’ll show you around personally.
I hope someone is addressing my complaint about her pipes discharging water into our yard and contributing to the destruction of the foundation of our house. There are two that are closer than 10 feet.
Thank you,
Carolyn
Here are some pictures of cracks in our bedroom that the engineer we hired told us were caused by the foundation shifting from bad drainage. We put that piece of tape on one of them last winter to see if our rainscaping had halted the damage or not. No movement since! These photos were taken on 08/25/19.
Total time I’ve spent up to this point on our defense: 27.81 hours
One of my all-time favorite novels is “Duane’s Depressed” by Larry McMurtry. I’ve re-read it enough times to have it practically memorized. At the beginning of the book,
the title character is in his early 60’s and is the owner of a small oil company in Texas. One day he comes to the realization that he can no longer tolerate his current lifestyle. He decides that he has spent way too many decades of his life driving around in pickup trucks trying to accomplish things that haven’t meant anything to him in a long time. His house is too large, too crammed with stuff and too full of family members who drive him crazy. The town is too full of people who expect him to serve on committees, solve problems and listen to complaints. He doesn’t want to deal with the oil company anymore and eventually turns it over to his son. He abruptly parks his pickup truck, walks out to a simple cabin he owns outside of town, and abdicates nearly all of his responsibilities, despite protests from practically everyone in his life.
Duane has decided for reasons not known to him yet that he is fed up with motorized transportation. The new life he has begun has been simplified into figuring out how to meet his basic needs while walking everywhere he needs to go. His cabin has almost nothing in it so when he decides to clear some brush and stockpile some firewood, he walks to a convenience store with a small hardware department to get tools since he can’t stand the thought of having to deal with the people in the town and in his house to get the tools he already owns. The store owner tells him he is acting like Thoreau so he later seeks out a copy of “Walden” and reads it to see what the store owner is talking about. This is part of his process of seeking an explanation for his behavior that he can’t give to all the people who are bugging him about it because he doesn’t yet know himself.
A lot of the book deals with Duane’s thoughts as he’s working on his new activities. Later in the book he does engage in actual gardening but while he is still just working on firewood he considers walking to the store to purchase a wheelbarrow so he can work faster. Then he asks himself why he needs to work faster and decides that acquiring stuff so he can work faster is a slippery slope back to the old life he doesn’t want any more.
I think a lot about the decision of this character not to purchase a wheelbarrow while I’m out gardening. I own a few power tools, but I usually prefer to use hand tools when I can. I do not have a philosophical or moral objection to using power tools. I will use them when I think they will help me out. One of the reasons I use a lot of hand tools is that sometimes it takes more time to deal with batteries and rechargers and extension cords and power outlets than it does to just grab a hand tool and do it. I like the exercise that comes with hand work. Probably the biggest reason is that when I’m working on my own garden, I’m working for different reasons than for a client garden. Timing IS important when working on gardening and landscaping projects even if you don’t have a deadline or have to work in the most cost-effective way possible when working on a project. Sometimes you have to whip out the power tools to get things done during the right season or in the right order before something else can be done.
An invasive hedge we are removing bit by bit with hand tools.
I’ve been periodically working on removing these invasive honeysuckle bushes and vines in our backyard for some time. I’ve been making a big push the last few weeks and last night my husband Tom joined in. So far all of this work has been done with hands, a bypass hand pruner, a small pruning saw and a pair of loppers. Yes we could get this done more quickly if we borrowed, purchased or rented a power chain saw. But if we did that we could not converse while we work or enjoy the bird sounds. The task would become just another chore instead of a restorative activity that makes us feel good physically and mentally. Another factor to consider is the apartment complex that is adjacent to our backyard. I hate it when weather nice enough to open your house windows finally comes along and you have to abruptly close them because all you can hear are leaf blowers, saws and lawn mowers. This is less of a problem if your property is large but as you can see ours is not and we have extremely close neighbors that I would rather not disturb if it’s not absolutely necessary.
Like the title character in “Duane’s Depressed”, I appreciate taking time when possible to do things the slow way and the simpler way. When I first read “Duane’s Depressed” 20 years ago I had not heard of mindfulness. I don’t think the word mindfulness is even in the book but that is part of what Duane needed without knowing it. Gardening is one of the things I do to help achieve it – when I’m gardening all I’m thinking about are the sights, sounds, smells, textures and sometimes even tastes I’m experiencing. The effect on my well being is almost like magic!
No, I haven’t yet read “Walden”. The character who mentions Thoreau to Duane refers to him as a “Yankee a**hole” and Duane’s therapist calls him “that gloomy man”. Not exactly a ringing endorsement is it! Have you read “Walden”? If so, what did you think? In this novel Duane also reads “Remembrance of Things Past” by Proust which he hates 90% of, so I haven’t picked that one up yet either!
I ran a test on an oak tree that is at the corner of my condo to see what the value of it is in hard cash terms. I used a really useful tool called i-Tree Design. Here is a screenshot showing some of the benefits of this tree over a 10 year period.
You can run tests using your own property as an example with different sizes and species of trees. The tool will even show you spots on your property where trees will have the most and least benefit. It’s lots of fun and very enlightening! Sometimes it’s a good idea to know how much a tree is worth when you are deciding whether to invest money in tree care or planting new trees.
