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Floodwaters don’t recede in Champion

Home left on an island on property following heavy rain

Staff photo / Ed Runyan This is the side yard of a home on state Route 305 and Downs Road in Champion where floodwaters from Friday and early Saturday remained high around noon Saturday. The family says a variety of issues are causing the problem.

CHAMPION — Scott Gradishar grew up in his parents’ house at state Route 305 and Downs Road in Champion, but a flood of stormwater around the home never was like this when he was a kid.

Over the years, stormwater issues have multiplied — standing water in the ditch in front of the house on state Route 305, water coming under Downs Road through pipes installed by the township and onto his parents’ property, and blockages at Chocolate Run just up the street to the north.

“It’s just crazy,” Scott said Saturday after hard rains Friday evening and into Saturday morning flooded his parents’ yard, with water practically surrounding the house on all sides.

The home has a frontage of 367 feet and quite a few acres of land, but around noon Saturday, the water had come to within about 10 feet of one side of the home and wrapped around the back of it.

The home practically was an island surrounded by floodwaters.

“The sump pump runs a lot,” he said.

In many places in Trumbull County, the rain had dissipated by Saturday afternoon, but Gradishar said it will take four or five days for the water around his parents’ home to abate.

He said he spoke with former Champion Township trustee Jeff Hovanic after the township installed pipes on Downs Road to carry stormwater away from homes on the east side of the road. He told Hovanic the pipes only moved the problem to his parents’ yard, but Hovanic had no answer.

A foot-deep buildup of soil in the 3-foot pipe under the Gradishars’ driveway on Route 305 keeps the ditch full of water most of time, but the state has not helped with that issue either, Scott Gradishar said.

When contacted about the issue, township trustee Doug Emerine said he agrees a crossover pipe installed on Downs “created a much larger problem for the Gradishar family.”

But he said eliminating the problem with Chocolate Run is not possible because government entities like the township cannot go onto private property to eliminate beaver dams and such that cause flooding for nearby residents.

Emerine said creeks like Chocolate Run are creating more and more issues for Champion residents all the time and he doesn’t know a solution. “Our hands are tied.”

He said the township is not allowed to help get the pipe under the Gradishars’ driveway cleaned out because it is on a state road.

Rex Fee, a former township trustee who also formerly worked for the county sanitary engineer’s office, said one way to resolve issues such as the one at the Gradishar property is to conduct an engineering study to see what all of the issues are.

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