Park Forest neighbors seeking end of drainage ditch flooding

Updated: Friday, August 1 2014, 04:58 PM EDT

Reported By: Erin Calandra Written By: Marc Stempka

PATTON TOWNSHIP, Pa. -- Check the ditch. That is what some Centre County residents said they need to do every time it rains in their neighborhood, and they say they're sick of doing that and want a retaining wall to help keep water out of their property.

Carolynn Stoicheff has lived on Douglas Drive in the Park Forest area of Patton Township for years. She said her home has been flooded three times and her yard is routinely flooded by heavy rains because of an overflowing drainage ditch in her backyard.

Several years ago, Patton Township officials started construction on a retaining wall for the "Douglas Ditch," as residents call it, to keep the water off of properties. Stoicheff said the wall stops at her property, and wants the wall to be continued.

"Because where the retaining wall ends, it's almost like it pushes [the water] through the yard," Stoicheff said. "We've ripped carpet out, replaced carpet. We've sucked water out of our house."

Stoicheff said if the retaining wall is continued past their properties and down to others from hers, the flooding would all but stop.

The ditch is about four feet deep and is a drainage way for the neighborhood, starting from Park Forest Middle School to the other side of Atherton Street.

Patton Township Manager Doug Erickson said the ditch is the primary area for water to flow.

"It drains several hundred acres upstream of there," Erickson said. "On big storms we can get some flooding."

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Park Forest neighbors seeking end of drainage ditch flooding