Water in Pasco neighborhood continues to cause headaches because of slow drainage

NEW PORT RICHEY, Fla. - The water may not look very menacing, but Irene Fields isn't about to take any chances. 

To avoid walking in it, she backs her truck up to the steps and climbs on the roof and into the open window just to leave her house.

"It's nasty you know.  It's gross.  It's disgusting, it's completely foul smelling. 

It's sewage water and I'm afraid I'm going to get sick," explained Fields.

After eight days, the foul-smelling water continues to cover properties on Sunrise Lane and parts of Cameo Drive.  And the frustration is spilling over.

"I don't have the proper verbiage to explain to you or express to you my concerns, my frustration, my anger, my dismay with the county and their ineptitude to take care of this issue," fumed Stan Shaver, who owns property on Cameo Drive.

But according to Pasco County officials, the water is receding;  just not quickly.

"The system that was built is more for volume not velocity, so not a lot of water's going to go through there quickly," explained Pasco County Commissioner Henry Wilson.

Residents are fearful that the sewage-laden water is becoming a health hazard. They wonder why some of it can't be pumped out before the situation gets worse.

"If we were to take vacuum trucks out there, we would have to do over one hundred vacuum trucks.  And then what are we going to do with that water?" said Wilson.

While the county continues to evaluate the situation, for the people who live with the mess every day, not finding an immediate solution is almost tougher to deal with than the water.

"It's a shame.  It's a shame.  We shouldn't have to experience this eight days later," Fields said.