Most of central Sarasota drains one way. Phillippi Creek starts out in the Fruitville area east of I-75 and runs a little over seven miles down through Southgate and Pinecraft to Roberts Bay behind Siesta Key. The basin behind it drains about 57 square miles of the most built up ground in the county. The creek is only the trunk. What feeds it is the ditches, swales and canals branching back into subdivision after subdivision, and most of those are not the county's to clean.
Sarasota County wrote an ordinance about exactly this. Under the county's private stormwater conveyance rules, a ditch, swale or pipe on private property or inside a private easement that has been left to fill with growth until it blocks flow is treated as a public nuisance, not a private preference, because the properties upstream and next door depend on it. The branch behind your house, along your community back line or down the side of your street is usually somebody local to maintain, and after a decade of silt, grass clippings, cattails and volunteer trees it is no longer carrying what it was cut to carry.
Nobody notices until the rain parks over the city. Debby did that in early August 2024, dropped over 20 inches on Sarasota and put Phillippi Creek out of its banks. We clean existing ditches, swales and canals with our own equipment, from a single home swale up to a canal over a mile long. Before anything is dug we pull the permitting maps and the historical records so we are restoring a designed grade instead of guessing at one. Free estimate. Text 941-445-3027.
Existing ditches, swales and canals cleaned back to their designed flow line
Equipment sized for a single home swale up to a full community canal
Years of tree and brush growth taken off the banks and out of the bottom
State licensed aquatic herbicide applicator for the initial knockdown and ongoing control
Permitting maps and historical records reviewed before a bucket touches the ground
Free, no obligation estimates for HOAs, CDDs, property managers and homeowners
The Sarasota ditch nobody has looked at in ten years
The failure is always slow. Sediment settles and the bottom rises. Grass and cattails root into the new soil and hold more of it. A volunteer laurel oak or a stand of Brazilian pepper takes over the bank. A driveway culvert silts shut. Somebody fills a section of swale with sod because it looked untidy. Any one of those is nothing on its own. Stacked over ten years they turn a channel into a shallow bowl.
We take the growth off the banks and out of the flow line, dig the accumulated muck back out, and re-cut the bottom to the grade the system was designed around. Where the water itself needs knocking back first, that gets done under a State Licensed Aquatic Herbicide Applicator license rather than fought with a bucket. Then we tell you what a sensible maintenance interval looks like, because touching this once every fifteen years is how you got here.
Ditches, swales and canals cleaned back to their designed flow line
Permitting maps and historical records reviewed before a bucket touches the ground
Equipment sized from a single home swale to a canal over a mile long
Volunteer trees, Brazilian pepper and cattail growth cleared off the banks
Herbicide work by a State Licensed Aquatic Herbicide Applicator
Free, no obligation estimates for homeowners, HOAs, CDDs and property managers
Why Your Stormwater System Stopped Working
Most systems we get called out to look at failed the same slow way. Sediment washes in and settles. The bottom rises a little at a time until the low point is no longer the low point. Grass, cattails and volunteer trees root into that new soil and hold even more of it in place. A driveway culvert silts shut, or was never put in. Sod, fill and grass clippings get pushed into the swale year after year.
Any one of those on its own is minor. Stacked up over the years they take a system that was built to move a big rain and turn it into a shallow bowl. That is why the water sat in the yard and would not go anywhere.
Sediment and muck raising the bottom of the ditch
Trees and heavy brush growing in the flow line
Culverts blocked, crushed or missing under driveways
Landscaping, sod and fill placed inside the swale
Banks slumping in and narrowing the channel
How We Get the Flow Back
We start at the outfall and work back from it. Knowing where the water is supposed to end up tells us what the grade has to be everywhere upstream. Then we open the corridor, take the growth off the banks and out of the bottom, and dig the built up sediment with an excavator sized to the site.
Spoil gets hauled off, or spread and graded where you want it. Side slopes get shaped so they hold instead of sliding back in. Where there is heavy shoreline and aquatic growth we follow the dig with a herbicide program, applied under our state license, so the same growth does not close the channel back up behind us.
Locate the outfall and confirm the intended grade
Clear trees and brush from the banks and flow line
Excavate sediment and re-cut the bottom
Shape and stabilize the side slopes
Treat the regrowth and set a maintenance interval
Boards, Districts and Property Managers
A lot of this work is for HOA and condo boards, community development districts, property managers and municipalities. In most residential communities the developer built the stormwater system under a state environmental resource permit, and once construction was finished that permit and the maintenance obligation with it were transferred to the operating entity named in the permit, usually the association or the district. The plans and the operation and maintenance records are supposed to change hands at the same time.
If your board has never seen those documents, you are not alone. It is worth finding them before anyone moves dirt, because they describe the system you are supposed to have. We do that research as part of the estimate.
We also work for homeowners on a swale that has grown shut and for landowners with an old agricultural ditch. Same job, smaller.
Maintenance Beats One Big Cleanup
A large portion of our drainage work is repeat business, and that is on purpose. Once a system is back at grade, holding it there is a much smaller job than digging it out again. For most communities that means a herbicide pass to keep the growth down and a walk of the trouble spots after the wet season.
It is also the easier number for a board to budget. A small line item every year is simpler to approve than an emergency dig out in the days after a storm.
Why ACI
Why Boards and Managers Call Us for Drainage Work
We own our equipment, so the machine that shows up is the one that fits your site instead of whatever the rental yard had that week. That ranges from a mini excavator that works between a house and a fence line up to iron that handles a full community canal.
We are also a state licensed aquatic herbicide applicator, which not every excavating outfit carries. One company handles the dig and the vegetation control, so there is nobody to point a finger at when the growth comes back.
ISA Certified Arborist on staff
State Licensed Aquatic Herbicide Applicator
Many miles of canals restored and maintained by us
Workers compensation and general liability insurance carried
23 years working Sarasota, Charlotte and Manatee Counties land and water
4.9 stars from 142 Google reviews
Uniformed crew, clean lettered trucks, site cleaned up at the end
Every photo on this page is an ACI job. No stock images.
From Google
What Customers Say
4.9 stars from 142 Google reviews.
What a great company. Adam and his team do an amazing job. We had a weir that our HOA manages and has to keep clean for storm water flow. Adam came, walked the whole area and gave us an assessment of what needed to be done. He turned around a proposal within 48 hours, and a time line to get started. CJ his foreman arrived at the stated time and got to work. We were amazed at how hard they worked each day. They were able to finish a day ahead of schedule. Very pleased and would recommend Adam and his team to anyone needing his services.
Why did my house almost flood if the system was designed for it?
Because the system that was permitted and the system you have today are usually two different things. Sediment, tree growth and blocked culverts shrink the capacity a little at a time. The design may have been fine. The condition is what failed. We measure what is out there now against what was intended and show you the gap.
Is the ditch my responsibility or the association's?
It depends on the community. In most residential neighborhoods the stormwater permit and its maintenance obligation transferred to the association at turnover. Roadside swales vary by jurisdiction, and in some places the adjoining owner maintains the swale and driveway culvert out front. Your plat, your association documents and your local code will say. We will walk the system with you before anyone spends money.
How long does a cleanout take?
A single residential swale is usually short work. A long canal runs much longer, and we schedule it in sections so the system keeps draining while we work. You get a timeline with the estimate, not after we start.
Are you going to tear up the yard or the common areas?
We pick the smallest machine that can do the work and we plan the access route with you first. Some rutting is normal on soft ground. We regrade the access when we finish and the site gets cleaned up before we leave.
Do you spray, or only dig?
Both. We hold a state aquatic herbicide applicator license. On most jobs the first cleanup is mechanical and herbicide handles the regrowth, which is what keeps the channel open between visits.
Can you get this done before storm season?
Yes, and that is the right time for it. Call early. Once the rain starts the sites go soft and every board in the county wants the same crews. We also run emergency service 24 hours a day if something is already blocked and you have water where it should not be.
Phillippi Creek itself looks clear. Why does my street still flood?
Because the creek is only the trunk. The water has to reach it through the ditches, swales and canals behind the houses first, and under the county private stormwater conveyance rules most of those branches are a homeowner, association or district responsibility. If the branch is full, it does not matter how clear the main channel is.
Whose ditch is it?
That is the first thing we sort out. Some are county maintained, some belong to the association or the district, and some sit on private property inside a drainage easement, which the county code puts squarely on the owner. We check the records before we quote, so you are not paying to maintain something that is not yours, and you are not waiting on somebody who was never coming.
Can you do this without tearing up the yard?
We size the machine to the access. On a residential swale that usually means a mini excavator and mats where the ground is soft. There is some disturbance, that is honest, but we grade and clean up behind ourselves and the street gets left the way we found it.
Drainage Ditch & Canal Maintenance Nearby
We work across Sarasota, Charlotte and Manatee Counties, and travel further for storm work.
