Rose Garden Resident

Cover Story

Photograph by Paul Lukes

Wet Concrete: Several areas of the sidewalk along Idaho Street in the Newhall neighborhood are covered with steady streams of water from basements being drained after being flooded by rising groundwater over the past month.

Newhall Neighborhood's new challenge: flooded basements a common problem

Rain, clay contribute to rising groundwater

By Mary Gottschalk

Residents in the Newhall Neighborhood area didn't view National Groundwater Awareness Week in mid-March as a cause for celebration.

Rather, rising groundwater has been flooding many basements in the area since the beginning of this month.

For some, it's an annual occurrence, but for others, it's a new problem.

The reason for the sudden rise in groundwater is due to a perched aquifer in that area, says Mike Di Marco, spokesman for the Santa Clara Valley Water District.

"A perched aquifer is a layer of clay only a few feet below ground that traps water," Di Marco says. "It keeps water from going down into the deep, underground aquifers we use for our water. Perched aquifers can go undetected for years and years.

"What's happening here is we've had 15 years of relatively healthy rain, and that intensifies the occurrences of high groundwater."

Di Marco says rain is the primary cause of the water rising, although there are other possible sources, such as abandoned wells. He says he knows of none in the Newhall area.

This is not good news for Mark Platt. The Idaho Street homeowner says he and many neighbors have standing water in their basements.

It is something they say they have not experienced before.

Judie Ciesla experienced basement flooding just once before, when she was in the process of buying her house.

"It actually began flooding during escrow," she says of her Morse Street home.

That was February of 1998, and Ciesla says she pumped the water out.

"It was a very isolated problem. It dried up by the time I moved in," she says.

"I asked my neighbors, and they said it had happened just once in 21 years."

On March 3, Ciesla went down into her basement to find 4 inches of water.

Ciesla's original pump was no longer useable, so on March 5, she put a sump pump in, connecting it to a garden hose and running it outside.

"I was pumping once a day for the first week, and then it was two times a day, and now I'm running it four times a day. It fills up to 4 inches each time."

Initially, Ciesla was pumping the water back into her yard, but now she's draining it directly into her sewer clean-out.

Ciesla and Platt are not alone.

A walk down Morse, Chapman and Idaho streets as well as Park Avenue and Newhall Street reveals numerous garden hoses emerging from basements with water draining into the street and onto storm drains.

This is an old problem to residents on the east side of The Alameda.

Peter Chastain, who has lived on Sherwood Avenue since 1977, says he never experienced any problems until about 10 years ago, "when my basement flooded to a depth of 16 inches above the basement floor. All of my neighbors with basements had it happen to them, and we have had to run sump pumps every year since then."

Chastain says his pump "kicks in a little while after the first major rain and continues to pump well into the summer months."

During the summer, Chastain says he uses the water in his drip watering system.

"I first pump into a pressurized 81-gallon tank with a bladder and an air-compression chamber," he says.

That doesn't work during heavy winter rains, though.

Then, Chastain says, "we route the water back into the street. If we continued to pump into the back yard, it would either accumulate or go back into the water table."

Paul Hawkins says he and his domestic partner Scott Beyer were aware of the problem when they bought their O'Brien Court home in 2004.

After investing in sealing the basement, installing a new sump pump and putting in drainpipes to the street, they discovered the slope of the street caused the water to pool rather than drain.

Told it is likely their house sits on an artesian well, Hawkins says their sump pump now "churns out water every 5-8 minutes, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year."

Hawkins obtained a permit from San Jose to put the water into the sewer system, but he laments the waste.

"A lot of good water is going to waste," he says.

Along Cook Street, flooding is a half and half issue.

Homes with addresses ending in odd numbers on the street have basements, while those across the street do not. Those with basements frequently flood.

Nina Katajamaki says there was a sump pump in her Cook Street home when she bought it in 1999.

It lasted until 2005, when it stopped pumping.

Before she realized it, her basement had flooded, including a newly installed water heater. The pilot light had to be replaced in the heater.

A new pump was installed last fall, but the backflow for it failed, again flooding the basement and the water heater.

Now, Katajamaki says, "the pump is going constantly," and she expects her electricity bill is going to be "horrendous. It's a bit scary to have these rains continue, knowing that the pump is not a foolproof method."

Di Marco says the water district has been aware of the problems on the east side of The Alameda for many years, but calls from residents on the west side are new. Thus far, he says the problem has not been reported on the Rose Garden side of Highway 880.

Some residents have wondered if the water district might be to blame, possibly by pumping water into the aquifers.

Di Marco says no.

"Those aquifers are 200 feet down. These perched aquifers are only a few feet below ground and naturally occurring; whether we refill the basin or not, they are going to catch the rainfall," he says.

So what are residents to do?

"It's disheartening, but it's a natural occurrence that there's no solution for," Di Marco says.

Draining Tips

"The most common remedy is using sump pumps," he says.

Then there is the problem of where to put that water.

"If you put it in your yard, it goes right back down and hits that clay perched aquifer, which keeps the water there," Di Marco says.

Lindsey Wolf, San Jose Environmental Services spokeswoman, says there are some options.

"In general, if the water has come into the basement, and the property owner doesn't believe there's anything toxic in the basement to contaminate it, and it's a short-term thing that happens just one day, you can probably safely drain the water into the street," Wolf says.

However, she warns, "if there's anything stored in the basement that might have contaminated the water, we can't have it go into the street because it's so easy to poison the aquatic life in our streams."

For ongoing problems with water, Wolf says residents should call the San Jose City Watershed Protection hot line at 408.945.3000.

An inspector will come out and assess the situation, she says.

In some instances, it is preferable to drain the water into the sanitary sewer system through the clean-out.

Wolf says clean-outs are usually attached to the house or in the yard between the house and street.

For ongoing problems, Wolf says residents may need to get a permit from the city to put in a permanent connection between their sump pump and the sewer system.

Permits are issued by the City's Building Division in Planning, Build and Code Enforcement on the first floor of city hall, 200 E. Santa Clara St. They can be reached at 408.535.3555, option 1.

Wolf encourages residents with flooding problems to start by calling the hot line.

"It's a case-by-case basis, and the inspectors are happy to work with residents. The dividing line is if it happens once or several times over the winter."