All this kind of runoff drainage is regulated in some way or another these days in most places. I tried cleaning out a pond overflow pathway that already runs to the road culvert in front of one of my properties, to make the water run somewhat slower, so it wouldn't tear out soils in heavy rains/downpours. While doing so, I cleaned out in front of the existing really old road culvert, and was real careful to not go too close to the town culvert which crosses the dirt road. I was on my land the whole time, and was cleaning out stone, dirt and years of accumulated debris that had gathered around the mouth of the culvert due to lack of maintenance by the town.
Within a couple of days the area was coned off by big orange cones, and I called the town and asked for them to call me and set up a time to discuss what was going on. Instead of any reply one day the road commissioner and the town head road guy were at my doorstep chewing out my butt quite vigorously waving the State statutes on ROW, access and yelling at me about working in the ROW. (Right of way).
I told them I thought they were going to throw me a parade and cut me a check for doing their work for them at no charge to date, and that they had to know the culvert needed to be replaced to begin with!!
They eventually left, but then I received a threatening lawyer letter from the town's attorney, saying I had operated heavy equipment in the road and ROW, and I was being called to meet the select-board to explain myself or further action would be taken.
Then I was called by the Counties DEC guy who wanted to examine my land. I met with him and explained I was fully aware of water and conservation issues, and my undergraduate work was in Environmental Science dating back to 1976, probably before he was born; and I was just trying to cleanup around my pond and re-institute the original overflow exit of my pond to flow naturally to the road culvert, without tearing up the ground on its way to it.
He guesstimated the size of the piles of 'earth' I had moved, and said I fell into a certain level of restriction by the State standards, and he would email me a plan I would have to follow to correct the situation. The plan showed various grades of crushed rock and filter fabric, etc. that I would have to institute, which would have to be done with certain dates in the calender so as to not interfere with fish downstream, etc.
Meantime, I eventually arranged to go to the select-board's videotaped, by the local cable station meeting, and plead my case. I explained the above, and the fact that I had worked as both the town's local representative at the town and regional level, that I only possessed a 40 HP CUT and had in NO WAY damaged anything in the town's ROW or elsewhere. I then offered a certain sum of money as a donation to the town to cover certain expenses as they saw fit, to make the issue end.
They thought about it and agreed to my offer.
In the meantime they had replaced the 2' diameter culvert with a brand new 3' dia. culvert. I videotaped the extraction of the rusted out old and install of the new double lined poly culvert.
When asked why a foot larger diameter they told me the State DEC guy told them to increase the diameter. Humm?! The 1/3rd increase in diameter allows a HUGE amount of extra flow through the new double lined poly culvert vs. the old rusted out corrugated metal culvert.
In the end I did nothing to touch the area in question with any further work. I merely let it grow back naturally.
My point is, one cannot mess with water, flow of water, pond outflow, road culverts, berms, ditches, etc. without being bent over and reamed out- even if one is actually improving the overall situation. Good luck to the OP and his neighbor, and hopefully both can avoid a 'border war'. :duh:
