With a wet forecast this week some neighbors in Dewitt are concerned their already flooded yards will be submerged.
Every time the snow melts or there's a heavy rain Nancy Bogner's yard is inundated.
"We've had to replace about four trees, the maple trees because of the standing water," she said. "It just continually comes. You can see as it rains, the lake gets bigger. We call it Lake Bogner now."
Next door her neighbor's place doesn't look much better.
"This has receded somewhat," Nan Sherman explained. "It was mid-yard earlier."
There isn't much they can do to stop the flooding.
"When it backs up into yards, that becomes more of an issue for neighbors," said Managing Director of the Clinton County Road Commission Joe Pulver.
The road commission hands out permits so homeowners can build culverts, which drain the water so it doesn't back up. Property owners are supposed to maintain their own culvert.
"When you've got a culvert that isn't working to its best, it's flowing really slowly, that's when you find these problems," Pulver added.
In this case Pulver says the culvert needs to be replaced and that responsibility falls on the homeowner. He says the commission has been trying to work with the homeowner to fix it for more than a year now.
"If a person can go out and maintain the front of their culvert that does help a lot," he said. "You get debris, you get sediment, you get critters."
Bogner says one of her neighbor hasn't maintained his culvert and that's what's causing her yard to flood. We knocked on his door but no one answered.
"It's frustrating to come home and see a lake in our front yard," Bogner said.
Even more frustrating for her because the county can't force someone to make the repairs.
Homeowners can ask the County Drain Commissioner to build a drain through their neighborhood. However that process is expensive and can take up to two years. The cost will be added to their property taxes.
Pulver says repairing the culvert would cost around $600.
