A crumbling sewer infrastructure and a stagnant network of drainage ditches turn sections of Waldorf’s Carrington neighborhood into a virtual swamp, even during last summer’s drought conditions.  

Homeowners can’t use their backyards; cars stall-out while crossing deceptively deep puddles on the streets.  Insects and bacteria multiply exponentially in the standing water.  Decomposing trash and organic debris in drainage ditches and storm drains not only stink; but, out in the open as they are, also attract undesirable quantities of disease carrying vermin.

Among residents, tempers run short and volatile during any discussion of who is officially responsible for the state of the neighborhood and the solution.  By their report, Jack and Ellen Briggs alone contacted 37 State, Federal and local entities in an effort to get someone to enforce local health ordinances and make the necessary repairs. 

The debate over ownership of the neighborhood’s public drainage areas even has county officials throwing their hands in the air.  Despite having all the area’s records at their fingertips, officials at the County’s Nov. 28 presentation to Carrington residents, said they have no idea who has responsibility for maintaining Carrington’s infrastructure.  They are, however, certain it wasn’t their job.

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Finding Someone to Drain the Swamp

In response to numerous complaints about the swamp-like conditions, the County Commissioners assured Carrington residents that the County would figure the situation out.  Board of Commissioners President Wayne Cooper warned homeowners, at a neighborhood meeting in the summer of 2006, that, “it could take up to a year just to get to the point where we could start work”.  A year seemed like nothing after residents had already waited for decades. 

A resident comments at the Nov. 28 meeting.

In August 2006, Bob Harrington, county Stormwater Management and Drainage Engineer, slogged through the neighborhood’s problem spots with hip waders and camera to document the extent of the damage.  The report was finished in October 2006, but the Commissioners took six months after that to get the issue on the Board’s agenda. 

After hearing the report on March 6, 2007, the Commissioners communicated a sense of urgency and importance for a solution to the neighborhood’s problems.  To Carrington residents, it seemed like county government was finally on their side and repairs were about to happen.

“I’m certainly glad that we’re looking into this.  And, I hope that whatever we do, we keep this community as a priority,” said Board of Commissioners Vice President Edith Patterson (D-district 2)

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Out of Sight, Out of Mind

Despite the serious risks that Carrington residents face from the swampy conditions, a year and a half after Cooper’s mention of a timetable, the county has fixed only one of the estimated 56 problems the report notes on public areas. 

At the March briefing, the Commissioners talked about presenting the report to Carrington homeowners within 30 days.  Instead, the Board took 9 months to present the report at a neighborhood meeting late last month. 

Instead of attending the meeting, the Board sent their regrets through Chuck Beall, Acting-Director of Planning & Growth Management.  At the start of the meeting Beall conveyed the regrets, adding that one commissioner expected to be at the meeting before it ended.  Board President Wayne Cooper (D-at large) later told the Bay Net that a last minute legal issue required the Board’s immediate attention and prevented their promised attendance; even Commissioner Gary Hodge (D-district 4), whose district includes Carrington.

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Options & Contradictions

The neighborhood meeting drew a small but concerned crowd of 26 Carrington homeowners.  Most audience members had lived in the neighborhood for more than 20 years.  Beall, Harrington, and Michael Hinchy, Chief of Development Services, presented to residents a slightly expanded version of the report than the commissioners had seen 9 months earlier.

Bob Harrington delivers the report. Chuck Beall waits to speak.

Harrington stated that the drainage ditches and other problems on private land will take about $315,000 to fix.  Repairs to public areas estimate at $150,500. 

“You’ve definitely got the attention of the Board of Commissioners, and they are working toward a solution,” Beall promised the audience. 

To emphasize the Board’s attention to the matter, Beall told the group that the Commissioners have formed a task force to consider drainage issues all over the county, Carrington included. 

“We’ve got a couple commissioners that are on that task force.  Myself.  We’ve got our fiscal services budget director on there.  What we’re going to be doing is taking a look to see what are the options that are…with regards to funding sources.  To generate the revenues necessary so that these problems are taken care of.” 

Beall said the County is hiring a consultant for the group to help discover revenue sources.

Beall, Hinchy & Harrington ultimately gave residents two choices for repairs to problems on private land.  First, petition the commissioners to fix the problems and split the cost among the residents.  Or second, wait for the task force to come up with other funding solutions. 

The first option involves the formation of a Carrington Homeowners Association to manage the affected areas in the future.  It demands unity in a way the neighborhood has never before been able to accomplish and it requires money from the residents’ own pockets.  However, the petition option offers the shortest estimated wait for repairs to the public areas: two years from petition to repairs (if all goes well).

The second option has the attraction of using County resources to solve the area’s problems.  But, it seems to require an indefinite wait before anything is accomplished.  Beall told The Bay Net that the task force was “just commissioned recently”; it does not yet have a report date for its potential findings.  He promised, however, that, “Once we have that [revenue] information we’ll make that available to the public”.  

Despite the uncertainty of the task force's timetable, several members of the audience expressed an interest in its work and asked, amid general murmurs of approval, that it include Carrington residents.  

Less than a week later, in response to media inquiry about the inclusion of Carrington residents on that task force, the Board of Commissioners emphatically denied the existence of such a group.  The Commissioners flatly contradicted Beall, whom the Board sent to speak for them in their absence.

At the Board’s Dec. 4 press briefing, Hodge stated in unequivocal terms that the Board has not created a task force to consider drainage issues around the county.  President Cooper confirmed Hodge’s statement saying that a task force was one of the options under consideration; but the Board is still “looking at what it would do”.  Cooper added that the Board will “know more” after their February meeting with local homeowners association management companies.

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Tired of Hearing “It’s Not Possible”

Audience members expressed very strong opinions about the County’s behavior toward Carrington’s issues in years past.  Collectively, they were furious with the negligent attitude toward sanitation codes and public infrastructure demonstrated by the Health Department, and the County. 

“The County should be bending over backwards to keep Carrington from degrading,” said Dick Boyd, a 30 year Carrington homeowner.  “The County should NOT do nothing.”

Alice Baggett has also lived in her Carrington home for 30 years.  She reported that the street in front of her home floods three times annually, so deeply that cars often stall-out trying to cross it.

“I’m tired of hearing you say it’s not possible.  It is possible.  Do IT,” insisted Jack Briggs in reference to his continued requests for corner trash bins as an effort to keep trash out of the storm drains. 

Briggs was particularly furious about the lack of consequences for a neighbor who constantly defied both local and state health and safety ordinances to construct a dam in a nearby drainage ditch.  That neighbor recently moved…without dismantling the dam. 

Briggs also lavished praise on Harrington for his willingness to listen and obvious efforts on the neighborhood’s behalf, “you were a major help.  Thank you VERY MUCH.”

A female resident recently ran into difficulty with the certification of her home childcare business because of the standing water in the drainage ditch behind her home and the ravening mosquito colonies it contains. She cleared large quantities of debris out of the ditch but has been unable to get the water flowing.

Another male resident was incensed that, “In other areas of the country, if there’s no homeowners association, the County steps in and assumes responsibility for those common grounds”.  He couldn’t understand why that didn’t happen with Carrington at the beginning as it did in other communities in other states.    

Above:  Jack Briggs expresses his concerns at the Nov 28 Carrington meeting. Below:  The study area from Carrington Neighborhood Drainage Report.