Dated in 2007

Notes from the Old Noank Jail by Ed Johnson

We Need Water

Recently, there was discussion at Groton Town Council meetings concerning new local schools opening on a revised schedule early in January. Thus far, despite minor glitches, everything appears to be going well. In one case, the Old Mystic Fire Department and Groton Department of Public Works devised an interesting plan to meet national guidelines. They needed to be prepared for an unlikely worst case scenario if a major fire were to occur at the Northeast Academy elementary school at Fieldcrest, and planned accordingly.

The previous Hathaway School at Oslo Street did not contain sprinklers. When the School Board decided to expand at that location, the new design, by code, required sprinklers to be installed. With a nearby 125,000 gallon water storage tank already in place off Nantucket Avenue, the Life Safety Code and the ability to evacuate children with staff to safety was never in question. However, to further meet other national guidelines, an additional attack plan was devised which involved the Old Mystic Fire Department receiving mutual aid by neighboring rural departments.

The Fieldcrest section and northeast areas of Groton are serviced by the Aquarion Water Company of Mystic. They operate what is considered to be an older water delivery system, suitable for what has been primarily a rural, residential area. Their source of water comes normally from the Mystic Reservoir in the Deans Mill section of Stonington and this source can sometimes be limited as to volume, as is the case with many municipal water supplies. By local comparison, Groton Utilities has access to much larger water supplies and a greater reserve during drought periods.

The national guideline pertaining to Northeast Academy assumes that there is a sufficient initial source of water to supply the sprinkler system for life safety and evacuation purposes but that there must also be some method to continue fighting a fire at the building by using pumper engines, hoses and firefighters, in the event the sprinkler system fails to put out the fire. The guidelines call for a sufficient volume of water, perhaps as much as 250,000 gallons, to be available over a 3.5 hour time period. As noted previously, the nearby Fieldcrest neighborhood tank does not contain that volume of water, and the ability to resupply the local system from the Allyn Street Tank to Fieldcrest, using a nearby pumping station, is limited.

It is not unusual for fire departments to utilize pre-plans for supplying extra water to areas having low pressure and availability; Fitch High School is a good case in point. Prior to the installation of the large water storage tank on Fort Hill several years ago, and upon receipt of a fire alarm signal from the school, the Poquonnock Bridge Fire Department would dispatch several pump engines plus a ladder truck to Fitch. One of the pumpers would stop at a pumping platform at a lower elevation near the Grasso Technical School, hookup to draw water from a hydrant and pump it up the hill via a preinstalled underground dry pipe to another pumper hooked up at Fitch. This supplied sufficient pressure to the Fitch pumper to resupply water to the other engines located near the building.

The scenario for Northeast Academy initially uses a large supply hose, but will eventually utilize a new $35,000 dry underground supply pipe, from Lamphere Avenue to the school. This plan also involves several large tanker trucks from neighboring departments, operating as a caravan. Each truck will dump water into one of three large open holding tanks, drive to a pre-planed supply point, be refilled by a pumper drawing water from a source not connected to the Aquarion water supply (already being utilized to fight the fire), return to the fire scene, and dump water again. A pumper at the tanks will draw water from the interconnected holding tanks and deliver it via the hose or underground pipe to another pumper at the school building supporting the firefighters. The basic guideline for supplying 1100 to 1500 gallons per minute to the fire scene is therefore satisfied.

Later, a long range plan may eventually eliminate the need for such “tanker ballet” much as the large tank on Fort Hill reduced the need for the pumping scenario at Fitch. Current ideas being considered include possibly installing additional water storage tanks, either next to the school or next to the existing Fieldcrest tank. Some of us will remember the major fire at Ted’s Sales Room on Route 184, which drew down almost all the water in the Fieldcrest tank. An additional tank installed on the Aquarion system could provide a better, safer system for some of the local area as well as the school.

However, the simple addition of one more Aquarion tank does not completely address the overall problem of providing sufficient water for the total Aquarion water system itself. What makes more sense to some people is that there could be a cooperative effort by the Aquarion Company and Groton Utilities to provide metered interconnection between their two water supply systems. In this manner, with an additional expansion of interconnected service between both systems up on Route 184, locations such as Northeast Academy would be better able to receive sufficient emergency water to meet the national guidelines.

A referral has been made to the Groton Town Council Committee of the Whole in order to form a “Water Task Force” to study the best solutions to improve water availability to the Northeast area of Groton. We will plan to follow their progress accordingly, as costs to the taxpayer will be a major factor with any water system expansion. There have also been opinions expressed to the effect that the Groton School Building Committee should carefully reconsider any further expansion of the school system as part of Phase II until they review the actual cost impact of Phase I on Groton citizens. The primary concern relates to the recent project cost overruns, primarily due to issues with windows, at the school construction sites.

Hope everybody enjoyed the Holidays.