Some Dallas residents believe a construction company may have played a role in street flooding the past week.
They claim Uptown construction contributed to high water with storm drains that are intentionally blocked to filter construction debris.
NBC 5 viewer Russ Vandeveerdonk sent an email with the question he and his neighbors have asked after he saw water rising over Turtle Creek Boulevard in Dallas.
“Shouldn’t the construction companies pull those up, so the water drains efficiently?,” Vandeveerdonk said.
The answer is yes, according to John Larkin with Larkin Environmental. His firm helps contractors comply with storm water management rules.
Larkin said storm sewer covers are required to comply with Federal Law, but removing them is required, too.
“The city of Dallas now will send them an email and tell them to pull them, if there’s a huge rain event coming like the one we had yesterday,” Larkin said.
However, Larkin said two opposing goals regulate storm water, traffic safety and pollution control.
“We’re trying to protect the waters of the United States, in this case Turtle Creek but you can only hold back so much water,” Larkin said.
Vandeveerdonk said he saw storm drains in the Uptown area covered in recent hard rains and that area streets drained slowly because of it.
“No one spends that extra minute because thunder and lighting is coming, everybody is running to their car to get off the job site,” Vandeveerdonk said.
The city of Dallas provided a copy of the email warning sent to contractors Thursday morning, prior to this rain event. The email told them to remove only certain covers and to replace them within 24 hours.
