Editor’s note: Below find a special report about Church Hill’s ongoing l’affair pétanque. Here’s how to submit tips, documents, correspondence, etc. with The Lookout for editorial consideration. Check the liveblog for reporting odds-and-ends about this controversy.—Dave.

Over two months have passed since the Department of Parks, Recreation, and Community Facilities told community members it would reverse its controversial expansion of Chimborazo Playground’s pétanque facilities. In that time, the silt fence surrounding the aborted courts—which the department hastily erected in in mid-May after The Lookout first reported that the site was noncompliant with state stormwater regulations—has failed at multiple points, allowing runoff from the canceled construction project to wash into the surrounding field and alley with every rain.

Following up on multiple tips, The Lookout reached out to Virginia’s Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) and Richmond’s Department of Public Utilities (DPU), which administers the state’s stormwater permitting within the city, on Tuesday, October 27th, to ask about the failed fence. Residents on the alley to the north of the park have expressed concerns that the construction project was funneling more water and debris into the storm drain, which has clogged to catastrophic effect in recent years.

By the next morning, this inquiry had moved City Hall to act—if not due to the scrutiny, then in deference to the state’s authority. “The city was made aware of the complaint on Oct. 27 and had a deadline for corrective actions by [close of business] on Oct. 28,” Sarah Pentecost, DEQ’s senior communications coordinator, said in an emailed statement. Read the department’s referral of The Lookout’s inquiry on The Lookout’s share drive.

“After conducting an inspection at the recently constructed pads, I observed the surrounding silt fence down at various spots,” a DPU official, Chris Grosvenor, told DPR counterparts Nissa Richardson and Heywood Harrison, in an email on the morning of October 28th. (The latter officials have been involved in l’affair pétanque from the jump.) “Please repair by the end of today.”

Grosvenor followed up with DEQ later that afternoon to say the fence had been resurrected. And at noon on Thursday, October 29th, a crew from the city could be seen re-trenching portions of the fenceline. “The silt fencing was re-secured earlier this week, and full installation should be completed in the next week,” a city spokesperson told The Lookout on morning of Friday, October 30th.

Check The Lookout’s L’Affair Pétanque Liveblog for the latest reportage.

This has been a Lookout special report. Please submit tips, photos, etc. about the East End for editorial consideration.