Council hears complaint on water drainage

DU QUOIN - City resident Mary King has a water problem at her home on the corner of Peach and South Streets. And on Monday, she brought forth a formal complaint to the Du Quoin City Council, asking what the city can do to fix her chronic drainage problem.

King, who lives next to the high school football field, said anytime it rains significantly, water runs off from the asphalt parking lot owned by the school district into and beyond a nearby ditch and subsequently into her yard, including her garage.

Mayor Guy Alongi said he sympathizes with King and agreed it is a recurring problem, but pointed out that efforts to fix the infrastructure problem could cost the city tens of thousands of dollars.

"And that's money we don't have to spend," he said.

Alongi said the school district is aware of the problem. The mayor said the city "would do what it can" to help.

Councilman Chuck Genesio, who oversees the city's infrastructure, said the city is "not responsible" for paying to fix the problem, but pointed out that city engineer Doug Bishop has come up with a recommendation. Genesio said that recommendation includes the construction of a retention area on the southwest corner of the parking lot in question, which would hold much of the excess water from draining quickly into the Kings' property.

"The way things are right now, 100 percent of that rainwater goes into a corner, overloading our capacity to filter the water through our stormwater drainage system and right into her yard. We're willing to help, but again, this is not the city's problem. It's the school district's problem."

Genesio said the estimated cost to build a retention area for the excess water is between $70,000 and $80,000.

District 300 School Superintendent Gary Kelly disagrees with Genesio's position that it is a school district problem. He said the school district consulted with the same city engineer (Bishop) when it had the parking lot asphalted.

"He did the site work for us," Kelly said.

The superintendent said he, too, does not want to see the King family suffer and would like to arrange a sit-down meeting with the city to discuss the best possible solution.

"I've never said we're opposed to alleviating this problem. We're not a bad neighbor. We're not being adversarial. We were just doing what we were told to do when we built it," Kelly said.