Saugus park flooding irks DPW chief

SAUGUS – Town officials say the Bristow Street Playground is completely submerged because an abutting homeowner is pumping flood water from his basement onto the recreational land.”It’s disgraceful,” Public Works Director Joseph Attubato said Wednesday. “We have sent them letters, telling them to stop, but they’re still pumping. They were warned in a letter on March 2 to stop and that letter was also sent to the town manager and the selectmen.”According to Attubato, residents Timothy and Jeanne St. Cyr of 17 Bristow St. are using a sump pump to eject water from their basement. The water gushes in a heavy stream out of the single-family house, travels under a perimeter fence and into the playground.On Wednesday, some areas of the playground where tot-lot equipment is located were under about 18 inches of water.”This has been going on for at least two months and it has to stop. There’s a bylaw against this kind of thing,” said Attubato. “We had men from the public works go down there and see if some kind of arrangement can be worked out.”The St. Cyrs did not answer a knock on their door Wednesday or return calls from The Item.”They did talk to one of my foremen. The homeowners are arguing that the water in the basement is coming in from the playground, that it’s the town’s fault. Everybody knows there are some very low elevations down there,” Attubato said.Bristow Street runs perpendicular to Lincoln Avenue and dead ends at the sprawling wetlands near the Italian-American veterans’ post.The public works director said the St. Cyrs have agreed to hire a contractor to dig a trench and lay a pipe from their home to the town’s storm drain. “If they do that, it would carry the water down to the marsh,” he said, noting that homeowners would be responsible for the cost of installing the pipe from the house to the town drain. “As soon as they get the contractor, one of my foremen will get together with them to resolve this.”Drainage issues near the corner of Walnut Street and Great Woods Road also caused icy conditions and flooding earlier in the week. At least one motor vehicle accident was blamed on conditions at that site.