GOTHA, Fla. — David Boers not only lives in Gotha, but he was raised here. His property sits on Mills Pond and stretches all the way to Gotha Pond.

The property has been severely encroached by Mills Pond.

“You’ll see oak trees dead," Boers said. "Most importantly my neighbor that sits on Mills Pond you could not see his house. It was that thick with upland pine trees.”

Now you can see his next door neighbor’s home, but not his neighbor. Mills Pond encroached the property so bad that his neighbor had to abandon the home.

Rising water levels in Mills Pond isn’t a new problem or one that came out of nowhere. In 1998, engineers that were working on the Turnpike expansion near Gotha went to “observe the lake levels and meet with concerned property owners…”

One of the engineers who was at the site listed in a memo that “It was also discussed that the future plan for the sag area for this portion of the turnpike included raising the profile through this area and eliminating the under drains, thus eliminating this perceived problem.”

Boers also happens to be a licensed general contractor and explains how under drains work.

“Under drains is a way to prevent the ground water from coming up and disturbing the base materials they make the roads with,” he said.

Boers believes what went wrong at Mills Pond was the under drain system.

“They take these under drains which are perforated, so if the ground water comes up, it can only get so high," Boers explained. "What they did is pipe that directly down into the concrete pipe and what they did is create a constant flow of water into Mills Pond, which was never there in the first place.”

Checking the plans for this project, it does show the stormwater pipe feeding into Mills Pond is also connected to an under drain system that pushes more water into that pipe.

Boers took Spectrum News 13 to one of the drains off the Turnpike that feeds into Mills Pond on a sunny day that had no rain in January. However, there was a steady flow of water going through the drain and feeding in to Mills Pond 24 hours a day, according to Boers.

“You can think about it in terms of places that water is likely to collect," Dr. Mark Rains, Hydrologic Sciences Professor at USF said. "You can have places where water is likely to collect that can develop ground water mounds, chronically ground water mounds.”

In 1988, a management and storage surface waters technical staff report was published. The report stated: “The ponds are designed to retain all runoff from the 100 year, 24 hour design storm.”

It also states: “If the pond adjacent to a lake or wetland, the pond has been equipped with filter drains.”

Mills Pond like Lake Nally, Lake Fischer, and Gotha Pond are all closed basin systems. A closed system is a body of water that can only discharge water either through evaporation or saturation.

In 1995 and the early 2000s, both the Turnpikes own consultants PBS&J as well as the county had studies done.

PBS&J understood there was a flooding issue created after the 408 interchange, and proposed five options to redirect the flow of the under drains away from Mills Pond.

None of those options were ever done.

In 2003 more under drains were installed and connected into the drainage system flowing in to Mills Pond.

Two of David’s more than 7 acres are now under water at the new base flood elevation, and this summer he fears the worst. His home like his next door neighbors may soon be under water.

“If we have anywhere near the rain fall we had this past summer or back in 2018, it’s just going to flood again," Boers said. "With the water staying up as it is now,  every year this happens it just  runs more of a risk of destroying properties around here.”

The only development surrounding Mills Pond has been the Turnpike 408 interchange. All of the recorded flooding events in this area started after the first phase of this project in the early 90s.