Water, Water, Everywhere

 We are getting quite a bit of rain here, but the Allegheny River is at 12 feet. It reaches flood level at 14 feet, so we're good. Still, the river is high and muddy. Our Conewango, which feeds into the Allegheny is likewise high. Tim walked down to check the flooding behind the rentals. He was mostly worried about the steps we built down to the creek for our tenants Paula and Jim to be able to reach the river bank and sit with a fire and watch birds during the summer. The steps are right where we left them, which was mighty good news to us. We've got rain in the forecast through Saturday night. High winds predicted for tonight. 

They're getting it badly down in Pittsburgh. Our Allegheny flows through Pittsburgh, and water levels there raised 21 feet in the past couple days. Comparitively speaking, we've got nothing to complain about. 

Today was a big day for us. The city has not responded in any way, shape or form to our paperwork. Dead silence. 

We have had a local television investigation team in. They've got questions. They requested paperwork from the city under the Sunshine Law, but the city has 30 days to get that paperwork to them. According to the reporter, he expects the city to take the full 30 days to forward it to them. 

In the meantime, we hired a guy to come in and run a camera down the line. He was going to provide us with a flash drive of the pictures to prove that the line had been capped. Unfortunately, the line is still filled with water and he could not see to get the pictures. But...all was not lost. He ran the camera through the line until it stopped. He came out of the basement and went to his truck. He had a device that communicated with the camera, telling him exactly where the camera was at. 

With a big grin, he said, "There you go. The camera is right here. See that writing on the side walk? (4'8", it said.) He said, "He marked where he capped it. The cap is 4'8" beneath this marker. That's where my camera is. That's where he's got it marked. Your line was capped." 

He gave us that information in writing. 

He explained where the city is going to try to get us. Shared lines are not allowed now. Back in the 1920s they were allowed so our lines were 'grandfathered in'. However, the law is, in the case of a drainage problem, the city requires the property owner to put in an unshared line. They will stubbornly stick to that, ignoring the fact that there was no drainage problem until they capped our line. Had they recognized that that was a 'wet line' and left it uncapped our drainage would have been working still. Since the house next door was removed, that line would no longer be a shared line, There would have been no problem. 

He pointed out that when a wet line is capped, the property owner is to be given written notice of what is going on. We were not. 

He said, given the city's dead silence on this, they are not going to respond, in his opinion. He said, "You'll have to get a lawyer." We had already figured that, and we have been researching out of town lawyers.

I forwarded the information to the reporter. Over the weekend, I will once again assemble the packets of information. Monday morning, I will deliver the information. What is so frustrating about this is that as citizens, if the city demands payment for anything, even a parking ticket, you don't have the option of ignoring that. How do they have the right to simply ignore us?