A Seminole County woman who plugged a stormwater pipe in her yard with concrete and caused months of extensive neighborhood flooding has fixed the problem and expects to have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in the end.

“I apologize,” Diane Goglas, a resident of the Shadowbay neighborhood, said to Special Magistrate Sherry Sutphen at Thursday’s afternoon hearing.

“But I had a situation that was not being addressed at the time and I begged for mercy,” Goglas said in explaining why she hired a company in April to fill the old pipe with concrete during a long dispute with the Shadowbay homeowner’s association.

“It’s a new and improved system now,” she said. “And as you can see the streets are fine.”

Sutphen then ordered Goglas to pay Seminole $1,246.64 in administrative fees and other costs for prosecuting her code enforcement case.

“I think that this is probably a testament to relying on our professionals and making sure that before you change a drainage pattern on your property –— even if it is your property — that you should probably hire an engineer and go through the proper channels to make sure that you’re not disrupting anyone else around you,” Sutphen told Goglas before imposing the fine.

Otherwise, “you can have some serious impacts on your neighbors,” she said.

County officials told Sutphen that an inspection Dec. 30 showed the new stormwater pipe Goglas paid to have installed that travels underneath her property and drains into a retention area behind her home works properly.

As an example, Mary Robinson, a Seminole code enforcement officer, showed photos taken a day after a Dec. 29 storm dropped a quarter inch of rain.

“As you can see there is no flooding,” Robinson said. “So this particular issue is closed and in compliance.”

The stormwater pipe was at the center of a long-simmering feud between Goglas and her Shadowbay neighborhood — a private community of about 100 homes and condos off Wekiva Springs Road near Longwood.

She had long maintained the old stormwater line was broken and flooding her yard causing sinkholes and erosion. But she said she wasn’t getting any help from the neighborhood association.

After a furious Goglas filled a portion of the pipe with concrete, residents said their neighborhood’s roads became nearly impassable — especially after heavy thunderstorms because stormwater would not drain properly.

Driveways and garages became flooded. Residents even put up “Slow. No Wake Zone” signs along the streets.

County officials said there was little they could do — other than issue a code violation in May — because Shadowbay’s roads and infrastructure are owned by the neighborhood.

Because Goglas did not fix the stormwater pipe by the end of July, the violation was sent to Seminole’s special magistrate in August. Sutphen eventually ordered her to replace the pipe and correct the issue by Jan. 8.

In a separate lawsuit filed by Shadowbay residents, Circuit Court Judge Donna Goerner on Sept. 19 also ordered Goglas to repair the damaged pipe. A hearing is scheduled for March 10.

According to court documents filed Wednesday in that civil case, Goglas estimates the entire ordeal will have cost her nearly $240,000 — including attorney fees and pump rentals along with construction and installation costs for the new stormwater line.

“I just want to get this over with,” Goglas said after the magistrate hearing.