I could dig 75 feet to reach wet. Neighbors down the road have a nightmare with wet basements. Six homes at the same elevation have growing trouble with cellar water. Some have filled their cellars with gravel. They now have wet crawl spaces. One just this winter spent ? $20,000 to cut holes (against my advice) in the cellar floor, install a basket with two big pumps.
These pumps moved ?50,000 gallons a day to the lawn, where it pooled, forming a small lake shared on the lawns of him & his neighbor, then swamping the next house, a derelict dump. It then ran across the town paved road flooding a corner of yet another lawn.
He asked: "Now what do I do?" I wasn't able to convince him to turn off the new pumps. Only option is a drain. Adjacent neighbor was all in favor if he could use the drain. The next dump was unable to get to his car without a raft was in favor. The pipe is inside the Town Road Right Of Way. The Town Clerk was up in arms
Nobody approached him for a permit. They drained it into a stream runs parallel to the town road, which empties into Otter Creek. I pointed out to the Town Clerk that it was NOT his decision. Despite the fact he could obstruct a necessary drain indefinately, because the Town has no such permit system in place, It was ultimately the decision of the Select Men. All Select Men were in favor, but couldn't give a permit, no permit system is in place.
As for draining into a stream: All waterways & bodies of water belong to the State of Vermont, even those entirely in the boundaries of the National Forest. Been a number of court cases where the Federals lost.
Feds prohibited snowmobiles on lakes within the National Forest. State of Vermont won that battle, so the Feds prohibited snowmobiles on dry land surrounding the lake.
