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Settle It

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THE SUNCOAST NEWS

Published: August 6, 2008

A portion of Suncoast Gateway Mobile Village, just east of the U.S. 19-Ride Road intersection in Port Richey, is again under water after persistent heavy rain. Over the years Pasco County has created a system of ditches and culverts in an area bounded by Ridge Road to the north and U.S. 19 to the west in an attempt to reduce the flooding risk in the area. This effort, alas, has not proven entirely successful.

The problem, county officials say, is a blocked draining ditch near U.S. 19 and Springer Driver. The county wants to unblock the ditch. The couple who own the land on which the ditch is located have said no. The county maintains the owners gave permission when they signed an agreement in 1958 granting the Pasco Mosquito Control District the right to create the ditch. The district, it should be noted, is not a part of Pasco County government.

The lawyer representing the property owners says the agreement his clients signed states the ditch is for controlling mosquitoes, not floods. If the county wants access to the ditch it should buy the couple's land, the attorney says.

Last week Circuit Judge Stanley Mills held in favor of the couple. The county, Mills wrote in his ruling, had "in the distant past usurped" from the mosquito control district permission to use the ditch for drainage.

Now what? The U.S. Constitution says private land can be taken for a public purpose like flood control but only after the owners have been given just compensation decided in a court of law. That sounds like a way out of the current impasse to us.

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