As Daisy McDowell walked through the backyard of her home on Carver Drive Wednesday morning, a cool breeze blew in from the west, freshly cut grass stuck to her shoes and birds chirped from the nearby tree line.
“It”s not too bad out here right now,” she said with a smile.
But as McDowell approached the overgrown drainage channel on the northern edge of her property, her smile disappeared. The muddy ditch, the bottom of which lies about 8 feet below the edge of her yard, has drawn the ire of McDowell and her neighbors along Carver Drive for nearly two decades.
The channel is a haven for mosquitoes and snakes during the summer, they say, and their backyards are eroding into it a bit more each year. Trash and debris floats in the water and the smell can be unbearable during warm weather, McDowell said.
Residents of Carver Drive have been asking city officials to cover the ditch since the early 1990s, McDowell said. Yet, despite promises from past city leaders, a majority of the approximately 850-foot-long ditch is in worse condition than it was when the issue was brought to the city”s attention in 1991, she said.
McDowell and more than a half dozen other Carver Drive residents attended the Starkville Board of Aldermen meeting Tuesday night to ask city officials to install a pipe in the ditch and cover it — a move backed by Ward 6 Alderman Roy A. Perkins.
With Perkins” urging, the Board of Aldermen voted 4-3 to accept a bid from Prisock Dirt Contracting to install pipe in the ditch and then cover it. The city only has approximately $20,000 available for work on the Carver Drive ditch and another ditch which discharges water into Hollis Creek. It would cost about $24,000 to install and cover 40 linear feet of 72-inch pipe in the Carver Drive ditch, City Engineer Edward Kemp said, or approximately $12,000 to install and cover 20 linear feet.
Next year, the city will have approximately $36,000 for ditch projects, which would yield another 60 feet.
“It may take a long time to get this done, but the key thing is we”re making progress,” Perkins said. “The citizens have respectfully requested and anticipate the closing of this ditch.”
Along with Perkins, Ward 2 Alderwoman Sandra Sistrunk, Ward 3 Alderman Eric Parker and Ward 7 Alderman Henry Vaughn Sr. voted in favor of the project.
Mayor Parker Wiseman, however, urged the board not to approve spending which would yield no more than 40 linear feet of pipe in the coming year.
Ward 1 Alderman Ben Carver voted against Perkins” motion, saying 40 feet of pipe in an 850-foot ditch won”t put a dent in the problem. He also cited a similar situation on Maple Drive, where pipe was installed in a small section of ditch and it resulted in flooding nearby.
“Is it an issue we need to address? Yes. Forty feet at a time? No,” Carver said.
Ward 4 Alderman Richard Corey and Ward 5 Alderman Jeremiah Dumas also voted against Perkins” motion, saying the city should take a comprehensive look at the city”s drain and ditch systems and figure out long-term solutions.
“Inevitably we”re going to be back here next year having this same conversation,” Dumas said.
McDowell left the aldermen meeting Tuesday night before the board voted on the Carver Drive ditch project. She shook her head in disgust Wednesday morning when talking about the prospect of only 20-40 feet of pipe being installed.
“Forty feet ain”t worth nothing,” she said. “If you”re going to do something, do it. Get it done. To start at one space and then jump somewhere else, that”s no good.”
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