I-TEAM UPDATE: Concerns continue about use of Augusta’s stormwater fees

AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) – City leaders say in a matter of weeks, they will replace a pipe causing sinkholes around an Augusta woman’s yard.

The homeowner has been fighting for years to get the city to fix the problem like many others paying a stormwater fee.

This is one of more than a dozen projects the city lists on its website under stormwater fees.

If you are a downtown commuter like most, then you’ve probably been caught up in stalled traffic at the some intersections.

Outside of downtown, homeowners are frustrated by years’ worth of stalled projects impacting their property.

The sinkhole grows larger, and patience grows shorter.

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“It expanded two inches towards the shop,” said Chelsea Thurmond. “I finally started going out there and measuring now.”

News 12 met Thurmond a month ago — four years into her battle with the city of Augusta.

“The trench is what I now call it,” said Thurmond.

A war trench of sorts in the middle of no man’s land.

A city drainage pipe runs from the street through her property, straight to the sinkhole.

“We were told we would get answers but never heard from anybody. As taxpayers, I don’t feel like we need to harass the city to get something done,” she said.

But after years of patchwork jobs, there are still no real answers.

“I’ve tried calling and I haven’t heard from anybody,” said Thurmond.

The same week we first told you her story, engineering sent a crew to her house.

“They came and dug around a few places sprayed some red paint on the ground over there and dug right into our water line and busted that,” she said.

In an email, the director of engineering says he transitioned the project to a small capital project and his construction staff is “getting a fee proposal from our on-call contractor in the next few weeks they will schedule work.”

A work order from 2020 was also approved as a capital project, but city workers handled it, not a contractor. By handling, they filled in the sinkhole at the time, not replacing the storm pipe.

The director of engineering says the storm system is aging and there are multiple failures across the county. At that time in 2020, he had members of his team leave for other jobs.

“If the outdated infrastructure is any indication, I am almost positive I am not the only person with the same infrastructure issue around the city,” said Thurmond.

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“Every time it rains, we end up with a hole in the yard. The more it rains, the bigger it gets,” she said.

Years of complaints and findings from an auditor in February do not add up.

Emails the I-TEAM received on Friday show the on-call contractor quote to fix the sinkhole at $170,000.

“I highly doubt it would have been that expensive. Instead of doing it all at one time when the issue arose so many years ago, they could have easily done that instead of choosing to waste taxpayers’ money by putting dirt in the hole. I could have put dirt in a hole,” said Thurmond.

Commissioners are working on a list of projects to dedicate $300 million in SPLOST funds next year, which is a separate fund from the stormwater fee.

The administrator wants the focus of the funds to go to infrastructure, but some elected officials are considering spending the money on a water park.

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