BRUSH PRAIRIE — Ever since the winter rains began falling, Larry Johns’ mornings have been filled with dread. Each morning, he said, he looks out of the window of his house, located at the end of 130th Avenue just north of Vancouver, worried that waters from a nearby pond will have completely flooded his property, rendering it worthless.
When he purchased the 5-acre property in 1988, there was a small duck pond on its southern end. Over the last two years, he said, it’s gotten bigger each rainy season. This year, Johns recalled how the pond grew with murky, gray-colored water after a rainstorm, and how the pond grew and crept to within 30 feet of his house. Johns, a retired maintenance worker, dug a hole near his shop, which he said quickly filled with water.
“You could put a kayak in it,” he said of the pond near his house. “Basically, all the rain from the stormwater is draining onto my 5 acres. This year has been really bad.”
He said that if the water continues to flood his property that his septic system and well will be unusable, making his property unlivable and far less valuable.
