It’s finally rained and now your neighbor is flooding your property

LAMAR, PA – It might seem like an odd thing to be talking about in near-drought conditions but, along with the rain that has finally arrived, complaints about stormwater have come pouring (pun intended) into the Conservation District.

Water from a neighbor’s yard can be a maddening and awkward predicament. Not only can excess water flood your yard, it can also lead to mold and mildew growth, rotting wood, cracked foundations and flooded basements if it collects near your house. When water causes property damage or soggy gardens, it often results in disputes between neighbors.

Even worse, when it does rain, there certainly seems to be an increase in the intensity of rain events and that increases runoff. So, you may be asking yourself whose legal responsibility is it to fix the problem if a neighbor’s water runoff is draining onto your property. The answer? Well, it depends. The legal issues can be as muddy as the mess in your backyard.

In Pennsylvania, the liability of a property owner for damages caused by storm or rainwater flowing onto the neighbor’s yard is often limited. Ordinarily, a property owner will not be held liable for damages caused by stormwater flowing naturally onto a neighbor’s land. Rainwater, after all runs downhill. However, if a property owner does something that alters the natural flow of the stormwater, he or she may be liable to the neighbor for damages resulting from the alteration of that natural flow.

Per a Conservation District release this week, let us start with some easy ones: small building and construction sites, tree harvests and land clearing. Pennsylvania law requires that an you have an erosion and sedimentation (E&S) plan for any activity which disturbs more than 5,000 square feet of the surface of the land, including, but not limited to, clearing & grubbing, grading, excavations, land development, timber harvesting activities, road maintenance activities, mineral extraction, and the moving, depositing, stockpiling, or storing of soil, rock, or other earth materials. As part of that E&S plan, best management practices such as silt sock or silt fence will need to be used. So, if you neighbor is building a garage or installing a swimming pool and the mud’s running off their property onto yours, they either do not have an E&S plan, they haven’t installed best management practices or they haven’t installed those best management practices correctly. If you cannot work it out with your neighbor, the Conservation District should be your first call. Also, many municipalities have adopted storm water ordinances so a call to your municipal planning office may also prove fruitful.

Larger construction sites are fairly straightforward as well. In Pennsylvania, any land disturbance over an acre requires a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit under section 402 of the Federal Clean Water Act. Those permits are issued through Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and such permits require a site-specific Post-Construction Stormwater Management Plan to reduce stormwater volume and rate. So, if there is a hotel or a factory or an apartment complex that is being, or has recently been, built next to you and you are suddenly flooded in stormwater, pick up the phone and call the Conservation District.

Farming also must comply. Any agricultural plowing or tilling (including no-till) in excess of 5,000 square feet requires an Agricultural E&S plan to manage erosion. But it is a little different when it comes to farms. As part of their plan, an erosion factor or soil loss tolerance (often called T) is calculated. Soil loss tolerance is the maximum amount of soil loss in tons per acre per year, that can be tolerated and still permit a high level of crop productivity to be sustained economically and indefinitely. Farmers can lower their soil loss by adopting best management practices such as no-till planting and cover cropping. The good news is, here in Clinton County, more than 65% of our farmers no-till and cover crop. But, If sheets of muddy water are pouring off plowed farm grounds onto your property, the Conservation District may be able to help, so, give us a call.

Now, here is where it gets muddy. Let us say your neighbor installs gutters and downspouts and simply points them towards your house. Or, perhaps, the neighbor installs a small brick patio or wooden fence that suddenly causes water to run onto your property. Perhaps the driveway across the street gets re-configured and starts shedding water onto your property. Unless your municipality has an ordinance to cover such a scenario, there is very little the Conservation District or state regulatory agencies such as DEP can do. Those sorts of issues end up being a civil matter – not a regulatory one. In those cases, if you and your neighbor cannot work it out, your next step is to call a lawyer.

There are also some ways you can help manage stormwater and, perhaps, be a better neighbor. A cheap and effective means are rain barrels. They capture rain runoff from a building’s roof using the gutter and downspout system. A typical house has a roof area of 1,200 square feet and four downspouts that will each drain about 300 square feet of roof. That means a rainfall of 0.3 inches will fill a 55-gallon rain barrel placed under each downspout. You can then use the captured rainwater to water your flowers or your garden. You can also build a small rain garden. Rain gardens are native plants set in a hole or trench in the ground to help rainwater infiltrate. The local Penn State Extension Office can typically provide a good deal of information on the basics of rain gardens. Using permeable paving materials to replace impervious driveways, patios, and walkways is another great means to reduce stormwater but far less economical that, say, a rain barrel.

If you have questions about stormwater, E&S, Ag E&S plans or NPDES permits, Clinton County Conservation can be reached at 570-726-3798 or via email at Conserve@ClintonCountyPA.gov