Imagine nearly 50 basketballs rolling past your front door, per second, every second. That’s how many cubic feet of county stormwater flowed through underground pipes directly beneath the Stavinohas’ driveway. The Bonsall family said they had no idea those 30-in diameter underground pipes ran right through their front yard until it was impossible not to see them through gaping holes in their driveway.
“We don’t have enough money to fix this,” said a visibly exasperated Kerry Stavinoha during an interview outside their home last month.
Two sinkholes in less than two years have chewed away at the Stavinohas’ concrete driveway. What once was a flat front yard, now resembles a shallow bowl; a bowl that sinks lower and lower into the earth after every rain.
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“It happens all the time,” real estate litigator Steven Blum told NBC 7.
Blum has handled more than a hundred cases across California involving landslides and sinkholes on private property tied to public infrastructure
The soil in San Diego County contains a lot of sand, which can’t withstand water erosion as well as other types of earth, Blum said. That's why he says the soil here is more vulnerable to landslides and sinkholes.
That’s bad news for anyone living near hundreds of similar pipes running under houses and businesses across San Diego County, many of which are beginning to deteriorate from age.
“We’re really frustrated and sad,” Stavinoha said. "We do what we’re supposed to do. We work hard. We pay our taxes.”
Kerry is a nurse and her husband, Aaron, is a U.S. Marine veteran who currently works as an ER physician. Both have been picking up extra shifts, but they said that won’t be enough to pay for the repairs. Last week, the couple met with several banks and is now in the process of taking on a massive amount of debt.
Over the past two years, the Stavinohas said, they’ve spent $100,000 out of pocket toward engineers and specialists to survey the problem and get bids from contractors. They said only one contractor was willing to take on the project at a minimal cost of $650,000. The Stavinohas, who said the bill will cost them their retirement savings, are also using money they had saved to pay for college for their three children. But they said the bulk of the bill will come from a $500,000 home equity loan.
“It’s been a nightmare,” Stavinohas said. “It’s been an absolute nightmare.
Two county storm drains line the uphill road in front of the Stavinoha home. Developer maps obtained by NBC 7 Investigates show those storm drains direct water into a pipe system that runs under the driveway toward their home and then into another pipe which directs all that stormwater down a hill.
When the home was built about 20 years ago, a private developer installed those stormwater pipes. That developer went out of business before the Stavinohas bought and moved into their home.
“We feel like it’s just one family handling this entire community’s water,” said Kerry.
In an email to NBC 7 Investigates, a county spokeswoman confirmed the county is willing to replace the 11 feet of pipe underground between the county storm drain and the Stavinoha front yard. That’s the distance comprising the public right of way.
The first sinkhole appeared in July 2021. Pictures Aaron Stavinoha shared with NBC 7 Investigates show the pipe connected to the county storm drain is so corroded that it no longer appears to have a bottom.
Without a pipe to contain it, nearly 34 cubic feet of water per second pushes out soil, creating pathways below the surface, which washes away more earth every time it rains.
“It’s not even utilizing the pipe,” Kerry Stavinoha explained. “It’s just going straight toward our garage. I mean, massive flow. Like, I don’t think people understand when we had those big rains. It’s like Niagara sound coming through underneath the driveway.”
After more than a year of that, the second pipe, the one designed to redirect water away from their home, gave out. Pictures of that one appear to show a pipe split in half. It’s this pipe that created a 35 foot deep sinkhole near the Stavinoha garage in December 2022.
“We feel that the county really dropped the ball on even trying to see if there was anything to help us,” said Kerry.
County says it's not responsible for repairing the damage
In an email, a county spokeswoman argued the government agency is not responsible for the damage, despite the fact the pipes carried county stormwater.
“The connection of a public pipe to a private pipe and draining water from the public pipe to a private pipe is not sufficient to establish county responsibility for the private pipe.
As a public agency, we have to respect private property rights. The idea that if we connect to something, we own it, is incorrect. That concept would limit a property owner’s ability to use that part of their property because county ownership of the infrastructure includes ownership of the land it is on or under.
There could be many different connections to a storm drainage system over miles. Every property owner has an obligation to accept reasonable drainage from their neighbor and pass that drainage on in a reasonable way.
The county is not responsible for infrastructure on private property that it does not own or maintain, even if it connects to sections in the public road right of way.”
“99.9 percent of the time you have to file a lawsuit,” Blum said. “It’s not right. It’s not fair. It’s not what they should be doing ethically. But it’s what they do.”
Blum said in general, the government is responsible for any government structure or infrastructure that causes damage to your private property, even if it isn’t the main cause of the damage.
“There’s an argument to be made that this water is going through a public system,” Blum said. “The Constitution is there to protect you from the government.”
“If anybody is buying a home in San Diego County, I encourage you: research," Kerry said. "Research everything before you buy it, because I think if we had known this, we would not have ever bought this house. If we knew all of the county’s water came under us, we would never have done this.”
How to research what's under your home
It’s not easy figuring out what’s under your home and who’s responsible to fix it. The first thing homeowners should do is look through documents that were part of their home purchase, like title paperwork. That will contain information about property easements that might reveal that there’s a stormwater pipe under your property, who owns it, and who’s responsible for maintaining it.
Homeowners can also go to a county website to search through the survey records system. It can be a complicated process to understand how to search for and understand what documents are found. The county produced a help guide, which you’ll find below. You can also call (858) 694-3253.
