VENICE – Consultants told the Venice City Council that none of their solutions for persistent flooding of a beachfront drainage ditch would have averted the catastrophic storm surge flooding caused by hurricanes Helene and Milton last year.
Instead, Thomas Pierro and Capt. Joseph Morrow of Coastal Protection Engineering said that the city should pursue phased changes that could at least – in the near term – handle stormwater drainage problems that have plagued Golden Beach and the surrounding island neighborhood whenever it rains.
Though they could not vote during the workshop and did not arrive at an official consensus, the council urged staff to purchase vacant lot next to Flamingo Ditch to expand its capacity to hold rainwater.
Board members acknowledged that they have a “moral obligation to address this as well as we can,” as noted by Council Member Kevin Engelke. But they hesitate to go too far, especially after attorney Derek Schroth explained that the council had a legal responsibility to try to alleviate Flamingo Ditch flooding from natural causes, but any enhancements adopted would obligate future boards to maintain that same level of protection.
Flamingo Ditch is owned by the surrounding property owners.
Schroth stressed that while the council has discretion as a legislative body, it cannot be compelled to perform construction or maintenance on property it does not own.
Historically the city of Venice’s has only cleared the Flamingo Ditch outflow on the beach when it gets blocked.
An excavator works clearing Flamingo Ditch, one of 10 stormwater outfalls on the island of Venice, Sept. 27, after Hurricane Helene. Storm surge from both Helene and Milton overtopped the dune system along Venice Beach causing flooding that was especially severe in Golden Beach and other neighborhoods near Flamingo Ditch.
A 2014 demucking of the ditch was a one time-capital project to improve water quality.
“We need to do something,” Vice Mayor Jim Boldt added. “But what is that something and what is the cost and what are the issues we’re going to be hung with later on.”
In addition to looking into purchasing the vacant lot, the council agreed that the staff should modernize stormwater pipes in the system, including modern grating and backflow valves.
“Long-term, we need to look at our drain system overall,” Council Member Lloyd Weed noted.
This aerial view looking west along Flamingo Ditch to the Gulf was captured July 1, 2025. A vacant lot the ciity may purchase to expand capacity can be seen behind the Island Shores condominium complex.
The board also agreed that staff should explore the possibility of diverting stormwater that has historically flowed to the Gulf through Flamingo Ditch to an alternate city owned area.
Mayor Nick Pachota suggested the Venice Municipal Airport as one possible site but had no location in mind.
The council must still adopt those directives at a future public meeting and the consultant must still finalize its recommendations.
Residents claim city did not properly maintain Flamingo Ditch
Residents who spoke during public comment felt the solution for street flooding was proper maintenance of the ditch – though their definition of proper maintenance beyond what the city has previously done.
“It’s pretty simple: you keep the opening on the beach cleared. You don’t have to have a PhD from Wharton Business College to figure that out,” said Lueanne Wood, who has lived in Golden Beach since 1985. “If they keep that cleared there’s a flow of water.
“Something has to be done now, we’re in the hurricane season, we’re in the sea turtle season. Just come and bring bulldozers and clean out that ditch area; I live right there,” she continued. “If you go there today, you’ll still see branches and stuff that are still in the Flamingo Ditch at 550 Flamingo Drive that has not been taken care of – that’s called maintenance; it’s like mowing your lawn, or sprinkling your lawn. It’s a simple fix guys, it is.”
Marianne Robertson whose family owned a property at 703-705 Golden Beach Boulevard shared the same concern – noting that her family had put $10,000 into an advanced culvert system to drain away water and another $10,000 for a retention wall and duo drain, “to just ward off common rainfall water.”
This aerial image shows Flamingo Ditch at Venice Beach on July 1, 2025.
She later asserted that, “because the city was neglecting to help us, the only way the ditch would be relieved was with the help of my neighbors, who physically would go out during the storm – take their own shovels – and unplug the ditch.
“That’s how we were able to save our neighborhood from all of this damage over the years,” Robertson added. “I’ve invested $20,000, my neighbors have invested their time to go out to the ditch to save the neighborhood – the city has not stepped up in so many years; it has been neglected.”
One homeowner sues city following drainage woes
The biggest complaint did not come Monday. Instead it came from Patrick and Dominique Lynch – who bought their home at 513 Villas Drive in December 2023 and filed suit in Circuit Court against the city of Venice in March alleging inverse condemnation, trespass, and negligence because of flooding issues that started Jan. 7, 2024.
The suit alleges that repeated persistent flooding makes it impractical for the Lynches – who are currently renting a home outside the flood zone – to repair their home, with the only alternative rebuilding a home at a higher elevation at an estimated cost of $1.5 million.
This aerial image, taken July 1, 2025, shows branches blocking Flamingo Ditch.
The lawsuit links Flamingo Ditch with Deertown Gully, a similar natural waterbody that also serves as one of the city’s stormwater outfalls. But Deertown Gully and surrounding homes are at a higher elevation, so they did not flood as extensively from the 2024 hurricane season as those surrounding Flamingo Ditch.
The city’s most recent response to the suit, filed on June 19 filed by attorney Randol Mora, denied the allegations and cited eight defenses, including sovereign immunity and a claim that the Lynches assumed the risk of damages when they knowingly purchased a home below base flood elevation in a flood zone in a coastal community.
A brief history of Flamingo Ditch
At an earlier meeting, Pierro noted that prior to development, Flamingo Ditch was functioning as a flood plain.
Technically a natural water body, roughly 212 acres on what is now the island of Venice drains through Flamingo Ditch – all of which is privately owned.
Interior portions of the ditch are owned by homeowners in Golden Beach Unit 2, a 7.95-acre subdivision privately developed in 1954, when it was in unincorporated Sarasota County.
The ditch’s mouth is on land owned by either the Island Shores condominium, built in 1987 or Villas of Venice condominium, which was built in 1973.
The homes that surround Flamingo Ditch were not incorporated into the city until 2002.
The beach outfall is owned by the state of Florida.
The mouth of Flamingo Ditch was modified in 1995, during the first Army Corps of Engineers beach renourishment project, and was modified during subsequent renourishment projects – most recently one that started in 2015.
Also known as Outfall 5, Flamingo Ditch is one of 10 city stormwater outfalls that drain into the Gulf of Mexico.
Venice has a 20-foot-wide maintenance easement for the ditch but would need construction easements from property owners for any remediation project.
That 2014 demucking project and a 2018 project to remove a wooden outfall structure were designed to improve water quality and not necessarily more rapid drainage.
Currently, water accumulates in the ditch until it tops a sand berm and flows into the Gulf of Mexico, unless city workers use heavy equipment to open a channel.
That process can be hindered by the fact that the rainy season also coincides with turtle nesting season, which generally prohibits use of heavy equipment on the beach.
Orlando-based attorney J. Christy Wilson III, who is representing the Lynches in their lawsuit against the city, contends that the demucking project, designed by Erickson Consulting Engineering, may have helped improve flow from Flamingo Ditch if it had included a plan to pump stormwater treated in an underground vault with UV filters 300 yards offshore for discharge into the Gulf.
But the city had neither the $3.65 million needed to pursue that option nor consent and an easement from Venice Villas for construction and future maintenance of the pump system.
The pump would have ultimately been housed on Venice Villas property in a 6-by-10-foot structure that would rise two to three feet above ground.
The suit contends that the city’s failure to fully execute all of the recommendations by Erickson Consulting as a reason for the persistent flooding.
Modelling done by Coastal Protection Engineering – which included scenarios with one and two pumps similar to what Erickson detailed – indicated that such a system would have reduced street flooding in small rain events but not necessarily an event that would have flooded homes.
Coastal Protection’s modeling simulated flooding from several events, including Hurricane Helene and a more frequently occurring 2.45-inch rainfall.
What’s next for Flamingo Ditch?
Some suggestions made by Coastal Protection Engineering, such as a change in standard operating procedures for Flamingo Ditch maintenance and retaining an on-call emergency contractor to open the mouth of the ditch after an emergency event, have already been adopted.
In April the city applied for a $5.9 million Transformational Habitat Restoration and Coastal Resilience Grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that could help pay for work including design, permitting and construction of any project.
While the city is second in line for grant funds, awards are not expected to be made sooner than the summer of 2026, with funding available from 2026 to 2029.
Council Member Ron Smith Ron Smith expressed an interest in tapping some of the roughly $2.9 million in sales tax funding earmarked for the city’s portion of the next beach renourishment project.
The Army Corps of Engineers is picking up the entire cost of the next beach renourishment – pushed back to 2026 because of the 2024 hurricane season – so the city could shift those funds elsewhere.
Pierro said raising the road – with additional capacity created by the lot purchase – coupled with improving the stormwater system with new piles, grates and one-way valves would create a lot of relief for common high-frequency events.
The final consultant report is scheduled for delivery in late August or early September.
This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: City considers more responsibility for problem Venice drainage system