Residents Upset With Rising Water Levels : Santa Clarita: City Council will discuss problem created by homes built above an underground river that is swollen from the heavy rainy season.

For years, this city’s residents wished their ground water level was not so low.

Their wish has been granted, overwhelmingly. Now the level is so high, one neighborhood often floods--even when there has not been a storm for weeks--and its homeowners want city officials to do something about it.

“My house is a moldy mess,” said Terri Richter, a resident of the Canyon Country neighborhood of about 150 homes where the flooding is worst. Richter spoke at one of several public meetings that city officials have held on the matter. She said the flooding has turned her lawn and sidewalk into an algae pond swarming with mosquitoes.

“It stinks to high heaven any time you get near my house,” she told officials.

Tonight, the Santa Clarita City Council will take up the issue at its regular meeting.

The problem, city officials have told residents, stems from the fact that they live above an underground river that is now overflowing, as it has during other high rain seasons in the past. The problem is especially acute of late, officials say, because nearby housing developments have narrowed the underground water beds.

“Somebody allowed this to be done and is responsible,” said Eugene Danforth, 45. “Somebody is at fault for allowing these homes to be built on a riverbed.”

Robert Newman, the city’s supervising civil engineer, said the home sites were approved by the county and built before the city incorporated in 1987. But he said the city is now responsible, though not necessarily liable, for implementing solutions.

The solution probably lies in the installation of pumps to flush out excess water during high rain seasons, said Dick Kopecky, a deputy building official for the city. “The idea would be to have (pumps) that would be drawing the water below the foundation level of homes,” Kopecky said. “That way you don’t see water draining out of curbs, draining out of homes and running down the street.”

The purchase and installation of the pumps would probably be covered by federal emergency funds, city officials say. And the fee to maintain the equipment would probably work out to only about $38 per year, per household in the affected area.

Two nearby Santa Clarita neighborhoods have been paying similar assessments for several years, Newman said.

That fee is not likely to be a stumbling block for many households. “I don’t think there’s anybody in the neighborhood who can’t afford to pay $38 a year to resolve the damn problem,” said resident Frank DiGiouanni, 52.

But, getting the pumps takes more than a simple act of the City Council. In order to assess the maintenance fee, the neighborhood must first become an assessment district, a process that involves a petition or special vote to ensure a majority of the residents approve of the plan. Then the City Council would have to add its approval and the project would be sent out to bid.

If all goes extremely smoothly, Newman said, the pumps could be installed and working six months from now.

But the neighborhood is not likely to unanimously embrace the plan. Some residents said at the meetings that they object to paying the maintenance fee because they have no guarantee the pumps will stop the flooding. And at least one woman thought the flooding should not even be looked upon as a problem.

“I don’t see there’s any reason to solve this,” said the woman who has lived in the neighborhood for 26 years and asked not to be identified. “It can’t be solved. It’s an act of nature.”