'Huge water problem': Neighbors worry about impact of new Rogers High construction

NEWPORT — Construction of a new athletic field on the site of the current field and the track that surrounds it at Rogers High School could be a challenge, given the history of the site.

Neighbors are worried about that, and a possible increase in water problems resulting from construction of a new high school.

Lesley Vogt-Behan of Norman Street, who lives adjacent to the athletic field, and other neighbors older than her remember when the site was a general dumping ground for “refrigerators, stoves, the kitchen sink, you name it,” Vogt-Behan said.

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Because of that history, they are not surprised the current field and track are sinking in areas. Also, given the high water table in the area and an underground stream, they are not surprised the field is often too wet to be used.

The neighbors were speakers at an “Environmental Due Diligence Public Meeting” held at the Newport Area Career & Technical Center on Thursday evening. As part of the preparation for constructing a new high school, the Pare Corp. of Lincoln was hired to conduct a site assessment of the school property, something required by state law.

Assessing the Rogers High School site

Michael P. Flynn, a Pare principal environmental scientist, told the approximately two dozen neighbors and school officials he called the meeting to learn more about the site.

“This is an opportunity to plan for environmental issues before construction,” Flynn said.

He said he has already reviewed governmental databases, historic records and site maps. The current Rogers High School was built in 1957, but before that there was a range of activities on the property.

Besides the former dumping area in the northwest corner, the high school site was also a former quarry and the location of an anti-aircraft battery during World War II, Flynn said. There are formerly used underground fuel oil tanks and transformers still on the property.

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The one-time dump was filled with lead contaminated soil, which the state Department of Environmental Protection required to be capped with three feet of clean fill in the late 1980s, Flynn said.

“Approximately 2,600 cubic yards of lead-contaminated fill from a Combined Sewer Outfall Project was placed west of the future pole vault/high jump area within the oval field and track, just south of the Harrison Avenue electrical substation,” he said.

To put that amount in context, he said a large dump truck will hold about 22 cubic yards. “That was a lot of truckloads,” he said.

The Newport Daily News reported on May 29, 1954, that the city’s Fire Department “had been burning debris in and near the large quarry hole on the Battery O’Shea site … ” That was the name of the anti-aircraft battery.

The Newport Daily News later reported on Nov. 29, 1955: “At a considerable amount of expense and energy, the site has been quite well leveled, eliminating holes and knolls, although the finished buildings will be on alternating contours. The big deep quarry pit in the middle of the tract has been filled in.”

The newspaper clips were included in Flynn’s slide show presentation to the group.

In Phase II of the site assessment, Pare will be performing “subsurface investigations inclusive of completing several borings, monitoring wells, test pits and soil vapor monitoring points,” Flynn said.

Neighbors air their concerns

Several of the neighbors were concerned about the flow of water from the site into the surrounding neighborhood.

“I have a huge water problem,” said Fred Roy, a neighbor of the high school site and also vice chairman of the city’s Waterfront Commission.

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“I have a pump that goes on every eight minutes. Think about that, so I am in the pump business,” he said. “I go through $500 to $600 pumps just to keep the water out of my basement. I’ve come to the conclusion that I can’t keep doing this forever. Eventually, I am going to end up burying the basement and making it a crawl space.”

He said from the high school area down to Palmer Street and over to Harrison Avenue is a “huge water flow.” The water table in that area is very high and if he digs down two or three feet, he hits water, he said.

Roy claimed Army Corps of Engineer topographical maps show an underground stream in the area. “If we start constructing over that stream or moving that stream, you don’t know what’s going to happen,” he said. “I think we are going to have a lot of water issues. That’s my basic concern.”

A Sullivan Street resident said the aquifer comes out underneath his home.

Other neighbors said they were concerned about water as well. Roy suggested forming a “citizens committee” to look at the issues and avoid the flooding problems neighbors of the Pell Elementary School, which opened in 2013, have been complaining about.

That idea was supported by Kate Repko of Dudley Street, whose yard abuts the Pell School. She offered to share what she has learned with the Rogers High School neighbors.

“Every time it rains, I have a duck pond in my yard,” she said.

This article originally appeared on Newport Daily News: Newport RI: Neighbors worry about impact of new Rogers High