Medway Erosion Main Road neighbors fear homes heading for Penobscot River

Tina Dill has loved the one-story house on Main Road in Medway since she bought it in 1999. Besides a comfy interior, the house is close to her children’s schools and has a gorgeous view overlooking the Penobscot River’s east and west branches.

Dill worried Tuesday that the home would soon go from overlooking the river to floating in it if town officials didn’t correct water flow problems that she and another neighbor claim are eroding their backyards and threatening their foundations.

“I feel like they [town officials] are doing things to pacify me instead of dealing with the problems,” Dill, 32, said Tuesday.

Dill’s house foundation has several cracks in it, and signs were visible this week that pressure from the ground around it might have been pushing it inward slightly. Dirt was on the cement floor, and Dill and her mother, Darlene Matt, said mud flows through the foundation whenever it rains heavily, as it has so often this year.

Unseasonably heavy rains also have contributed significantly to erosion eating away as much as 15 feet of her backyard and that of her neighbor, Nancy Deschaine, over the last several years. Much of the washed-away soil was visible just shy of the river Tuesday. The houses sit atop a 100-foot-tall ledge or hill overlooking the river.

But Dill and Deschaine believe the road’s apparent lack of ditching or other runoff controls is the primary culprit for their problems. Rainwater flows from the hill overlooking Main Road over the road through their homes at 69 and 63 Main Road, they said.

“The water flow is washing out the end of my yard, and it turns my driveway into a pond,” Deschaine said.

The town has installed some drainage control on other nearby streets and needs to do that on theirs, they said.

Selectman Bruce Jones and Rick Albro, a foreman from the town Department of Public Works, visited Dill’s house on Tuesday morning to survey the damage. Jones has visited the property several times, including Monday night, Dill said.

“I really don’t know what we can do, but we have to do something,” Albro said Tuesday. “The water’s got to go somewhere. It seems like this problem has been here forever.”

Town Administrative Assistant Kathy Lee referred comment to Jones, who could not immediately be reached for comment.

Dill, who shares the home with her mother, said she has been working with town officials for about five years on this problem, with it only worsening. In August after a particularly heavy rainfall, she followed town officials’ advice and had her driveway paved for about $3,000, but that only seemed to increase the water’s speed when it rained, she said.

Deschaine said she has spent about $1,800 in twice shoring up the foundation to her home. She also had her yard sloped to cut down on puddles.

Deschaine said she will be going to other neighbors over the next several days to see whether others are encountering the same problems. She hopes there will be strength in numbers.

Dill said she wants to get a contractor to look at her home to determine whether it is unsafe.

BANGOR DAILY NEWS PHOTO BY KEVIN BENNETT

Homeowner Tina Dill of Medway wants the town to improve water drainage to prevent further erosion of her property at 69 Main Road. She fears the house her mother lives in will become a houseboat as the backyard falls toward the Penobscot River due to rain runoff from the street.