To: Ward 4 Flooding Victims, Property Owners, Tax Payers, Residents, Constituents
Yesterday 8-1-24 a crew from Public Works worked from late afternoon into the late night re-storing water service to Newbury Road. In the heat and the darkness this PW crew made it happen. Excellent effort. Public Works’ Associates have been completing these special repairs for decades on behalf of our residents. Once again, “Thank You For your Herculean Efforts!”.
Now let’s better understand why these failures are happening in the Allen-Hampton-Eton-Newbury-Roxbury area. The Allen St. Basin Storm-Sewer System is overtopping, flooding and overwhelming the Hampton-Eton Sub-Basin Storm-Sewer System. This uncontrolled flooding with the water infiltration raises our water tables, saturates our soil resulting in unseen erosion, settling and shifting damaging our water, storm, sanitary systems, foundations, slabs and structures. After years of flooding, the water supply pipe on Newbury finally broke.
We have written documentation from former Public Works Director Carilli specifically detailing the immediate need for Allen and Hampton-Eton storm-sewer upgrades. Because of our efforts we’ve made significant progress with the required Allen St. upgrades. The design and planning stage is almost complete. We are waiting on emergency state bonding which has not been expedited by our state legislators to the Governor for his immediate assistance.
The current Public Works Director Moriarty has chosen to ignore our requests for updates verifying Carilli’s findings from 30 years ago regarding the Hampton-Eton Sub-Basin System. We have detailed all of this for you in our recent article in the NBP. Click below:
We have attached many photos detailing our ongoing concerns regarding the Allen St. System and the Hampton-Eton System:
-A few years ago CNG had a crew replace their underground infrastructure systems along the northeast side of Hampton St. and on Newbury Road because of water infiltration. To date crews have returned to these newly replaced underground systems performing maintenance. See photos from 10-17-23 and 7-18-24.
-Next we show the flooding-pooling water on Allen St. (Oak St. to Stanley St.) which cascades through the properties on the north side of Allen to the properties along both sides of Hampton and from the overwhelmed storm basins along Hampton. See the following photos: Many of these photos were taken 12-18-23 during our last flooding event of 2023. This area flooded 2 more times since December, 6-22-24 and 6-30-24
Looking east on Allen St.
Looking east on Hampton.
Looking west on Hampton.
Looking west on Hampton near the corner with Newbury.
The flooding-pooling water at the corner of Newbury and Hampton near the water pipe break.
The closed excavation site on Newbury for the water pipe repair from 8-1-24 and the repair equipment.
Sanitary pipe repair required on Allen St. 1-25-24-9396. 2 pipe breaks within 6 months in the Allen-Hampton-Newbury area.
We do know our outdated and undersized underground infrastructure systems (water, storm, sewer-sanitary) are at risk with each intense rainfall event. We know all about the problems on Allen St. What about Hampton-Eton-Newbury? Why have our City Officials ignored our requests for verifications regarding the underground infrastructure conditions on Hampton-Eton-Newbury? When will our City Officials share with us the true condition of our infrastructure systems on Hampton-Eton-Newbury?
As Director Carilli noted the Hampton-Eton Sub-Basin must be upgraded along with the Allen St. Basin. As Director Moriarty told us, he does not know for sure whether the Allen St. upgrades will stop the flooding along Hampton-Eton-Newbury. There is a simple solution, run a camera down the infrastructure pipes on Hampton-Eton-Newbury-Roxbury to identify the problems.
No need to be a rocket scientist to conclude that we have multiple problems in this area of New Britain. This exercise is not designed to place blame, although after 30 years there is plenty to go around. We want the facts, planned solutions and results regarding the Hampton-Eton Sub-Basin Upgrades.
Thank you.
F&S Chase
