Slip sliding away

"It requires a good working relationship between the neighborhood and staff, and it doesn't help to have somebody down there pounding on them when we're trying to work cooperatively," Duncan says.

In their report, DEG concluded that the erosion couldn't be blamed on any one thing. Instead, it stated, the erosion is a natural result of heavy rains, flooding, and additional runoff into the creek from nearby homes and businesses. They're not engineers, but the Barneses tend to lend more weight to the latter explanation.

"They told us, at one time, it's 'God's problem,'" Cora Barnes says. "Well, it's God's problem, but the city has helped it along."

Melton Barnes points out a drainage pipe the city installed on the opposite side of the creek, directly across from Gallatin's land. The pipe used to point right at the bank, sending water crashing into the bank and accelerating the erosion.

"It took me eight years of arguing with 'em before they came down and put it [the pipe] at a 45-degree angle," Barnes says.

Although the city recently changed the angle of the pipe so the water would flow into the stream, rather than across it, Denman says he doesn't think the original pipe affected Barnes' land.

"The pipe has had no impact as far as we can see," says Denman, who adds that its Barnes' responsibility to repair damage to his own property.

Parker, the city engineer, says that he would like to give Barnes a wall, but that there's no money left over from the $25.2 million flood and storm damage bond package that voters approved in 1995, a portion of which was used to fund the Woody Branch Creek project.

The earliest the city could get additional bond money is in a 1998 bond election. Although Parker says he will ask for more flood control funds, he doubts that any of it will go to the Barneses if it's approved.

"He's on the list," Parker says. "Will he be funded? Not likely.