Seattle, neighbor at odds over water-main cleanup

Four months after a torrent of water from a broken city water main rushed through her rental house in Ravenna, Lynn Potthoff is still negotiating with the city over whether her son should get a new bed.

Potthoff, a public-school teacher, lost thousands of dollars worth of belongings when 800,000 gallons of drinking water from the city-owned pipe coursed through her house and 13 other properties for about 2-½ hours on May 19.

The ground was still wet when Seattle Public Utilities accepted responsibility for the break, and the city, which owns the utility, said it would pay for damaged goods and reasonable cleanup costs and repairs.

Potthoff and others near 24th Avenue Northeast and Northeast 80th Street praised the city's quick response and its assumption of liability. But then came the nickel-and-dime details.

By Potthoff's calculation, it will cost her $8,800 to replace more than 170 items that ended up in a waterlogged heap in her backyard after the flood. On top of that, she'll likely spend hours shopping to replace such basics as bedding, rugs and appliances.

But the city says it is only legally obligated to pay Potthoff and her neighbors the value of the items at the time they were destroyed. Last month, it offered Potthoff $6,223 for her damaged goods — about $2,500 less than what it would cost to replace them. Included in the city's offer: $689 for an extra-long, queen-size mattress set for her 6-foot, 7-inch-tall son that would cost about $1,150 to buy new.

The negotiations with the city have left Potthoff wondering what responsibility means when she ends up paying for a problem the city caused.

"It doesn't seem fair that because their water main broke, I can't replace the same quality of what we lost," Potthoff said. "I'm not asking for over and above, I just want to replace the same quality."

Bruce Hori, Seattle's risk-management director, said the state's legal standard for damages is to put a person back in the same position they were immediately before the incident.

For example: if the city totaled a 2002 model-year car, the car owner would be entitled to the current value of the car, not a brand new vehicle, Hori said.

The city applied the same logic to Potthoff's damaged goods. The city hired an appraiser to determine values for Potthoff's belongings, and then depreciated them, deducting a few bucks here and there for such things as an ironing board (minus $6.25), a flashlight (minus $5), an electric drill (minus $10), even a checkerboard (minus $2.50).

Hori said the city isn't trying to nickel and dime Potthoff to death. It is trying to do right by taxpayers and give Potthoff what it is legally required to give her so she can get on with her life, Hori said.

"I guess that people don't want to, for some psychological reason, want to go buy someone's used sheets or a used bed," Hori said. "It may not be pleasant to buy used sheets and a used bed, but just because it's unpleasant doesn't mean you owe someone more money."

So far, the city has paid out $24,579 for five claims related to the flood. It is negotiating seven others, including Potthoff's, Hori said.

Potthoff had renters insurance at the time of the flood, but she said she wasn't able to engage the insurer in a discussion over damages because of the city's quick assumption of liability.

"They rolled up and left, and never uttered another word because the city had quote-unquote taken responsibility," Potthoff said.

She said she spent hours pricing beds and other items at Target and Macy's to see what it will cost to get back to where she was before the flood. If she accepts the city's offer, she said, she would have to spend even more time hunting down used goods to replace what she lost.

"Do we depreciate a camping chair? Fine," Potthoff said. "But a bed?"

The rupture destroyed the pipe and washed away clues as to its cause, so the utility still doesn't know why the pipe broke, said spokesman Cornell Amaya. Since 2007, three of the utility's water mains have broken without obvious cause.

The utility describes most of its pipes as good to excellent quality, but Potthoff said it's likely the city will be dealing with other flood victims in the future.

"At some point, this becomes about community," she said. "This is what can happen, and the issue is how do we treat everyone fairly?"

Susan Kelleher: 206-464-2508