A drainage ditch designed to keep water out of a yard along Willow Grove Road is not doing the job.

BELLAIRE – Merrel Shreve and Chuck Cassidy, who live on Willow Grove Road in Bellaire, have complained about a drainage problem for years.

A guardrail sits on their property located behind the drainage ditch, which runs alongside the road. Cassidy said the culvert often fills up with dirt and cinders, plugging the culvert where the water will overflow down into their driveway and eventually find its way into their basement. The water is supposed to drain into the culvert where it runs underneath their driveway and into a large inlet that runs along their house.

“This has been going on for three years,” Shreve said.

Cassidy would like to see a half-pipe of sorts, to be laid in that ditch to keep the debris from running directly into that culvert, but say they have been told it can’t be done.

Belmont County Engineer Terry Lively said he is aware of the property but said there’s nothing else his office can do but keep the culvert cleaned out.

“Yeah, we’ve been keeping that drain clean so I’m not sure what it is they’re wanting us to do,” Lively said. “We’re not going to build a half-pipe out there at the edge of the road, that wouldn’t be safe.

Lively feared the county’s snowplows would snag on a pipe and eventually just tear up what they would have built there, and maybe the road, as well.

“About the only thing that can be done is what we have done and that’s direct the water to that inlet,” he said. “If we were to fill in that berm underneath the guardrail then the water would just run off into their yard.”

He added that they have taken as much water away from Shreve and Cassidy’s property but noted that they do live in a ravine-type setting where the house sits lower than the road.

“There’s not much I can do about that,” Lively said of the situation. “That’s where the water is going to go when it rains hard.”

Lively was reminded that a possible half-pipe would be built below the level of the road and wouldn’t interfere with snowplows. He said that would then run into guardrail issues.

“We get these requests all the time from people that want us to fill the berm or something to direct the water away from their property, but then all it’s doing then is just dumping on somebody else’s property,” Lively said.

He said his office has accommodated Shreve and Cassidy as best they could but felt there is nothing else that can be done for them.

“What they’re asking is not something we can do,” Lively said. It’s a safety problem, we don’t want to put any stressors out there that are going to cause trouble for the snowplows, or anything like that.”

Shreve said the problem has taken value off of their property. To try and alleviate the problem, the couple put in a French drain that runs from the front of their house around to the side at a cost of about $6,000. She said it doesn’t stop the problem, though, and said the county is ignoring them.

“We’ve done about everything we can do. We’ll keep the pipe clean but when it rains hard, they’re going to get water,” Lively said.