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'We've been fined' | Neighbors demand help from DC agencies with possible underground spring

For at least four years, neighbors have said the water from the spring has been rising, coming through the concrete along the sidewalks and seeping into yards.

WASHINGTON — Some neighbors who live along the 4000 Block of Ely Place in Southeast, Washington, D.C. are hoping to get some help with what they believe is an underground spring. 

For at least four years, neighbors have said the water from the spring has been rising, and with nowhere to go, it's coming through the concrete along the sidewalks and even seeping into their yards.

Kathy McDaniel said the United States Postal Service stopped delivering their mail.  

“I just want my mail,” she said. 

Her neighbor Jerry Bellamy, had to stop by the post office Monday morning to get his mail. 

“They had mail down there for you and all the other residents,” Bellamy said. 

All because they live on a slippery slope along Ely Place in SE McDaniel said.

For at least four years, McDaniel and her neighbors have been dealing with what they believe is an underground spring with rising waters. With each change of the season, they’re noticing the problem flowing up the block.

“For 18, out of the 22 years that I've lived here, didn't have a problem at all. Then all of a sudden, water began to come at the bottom,” McDaniel said. 

She said it hasn’t stopped, each year they say the water moves up a house. So much so, one neighbor tells us she’s built her own retaining wall, and the steps on several homes have been replaced because of erosion from sitting water on their concrete steps.

In a statement to WUSA9, the United State Postal Service said: 

"Safety is a top priority for the Postal Service and carriers make every reasonable effort to deliver the mail. On occasion, carriers have not been able to safely deliver mail to some addresses at the 4000 block of Ely Place SE due to sewage overflow and other unsafe conditions."

All the neighbors we spoke to claim when they call any D.C. agency for help, they’ve ended up being fined for "faulty outdoor faucets" they don't have. 

“We're not sure what to do. We've been fined, we've gone to court,” McDaniel said. 

Delivery drivers agree this stretch of sidewalk is unsafe. Derrick has been bringing UPS Packages to this street for eight years, and even he wants to see something change. 

“Especially around this time of year, going into the wintertime and ice is over here. It's not just a thin layer of ice, it's two inches. That is detrimental to the job, and also walking up the steps, me as an industrial athlete which UPS likes to call us, this is dangerous,” he said.

ANC Commissioner Brittany Hughes also said she can’t get clear answers from any D.C. agency on how to help her constituents, and her last attempt left the neighbors with more fines. 

“The post office does not want to come out to deliver mail, we have seniors living here. People are stalling. That's a safety issue,”

McDaniel knows the problem can’t be fixed overnight, but winter is coming, and she’s hoping she and her neighbors won’t be forced to spend the cold months, chopping away at sheets of ice.

“It's just not acceptable as taxpayers,” McDaniel said. 

In a statement to WUSA9, the Department of Energy and Environment and the District Department of Transportation said: 

"Based on our observation it appeared that this is a groundwater condition and we have included this as a priority in our list of sites to address the drainage issue on the sidewalk in FY23 but will still have one issue to resolve. A portion to the frontages have private retaining walls that are structurally damaged and would likely collapse if we have to work around these walls. We will have to coordinate the specific homeowners so that they perform the maintenance work earlier to our intervention."

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