Watson field work ongoing

Work continues to repair the damaged field at Watson Elementary School, but it will likely remain unusable until the 2017-18 school year.

In April, parents complained to the district administration and the Board of Education that the field at Watson, which was redone after construction was completed on the school’s expansion last year, was unsafe. They brought in bricks and chucks of asphalt that they said they pulled out of the field.

Parents said the problems began last November and that the district was slow to respond. The debris was exposed as rain settled the field and shifted dirt, pushing chunks leftover from construction to the surface.

Part of the problem, according to Assistant Superintendent Robert Bartels, was that the district didn’t keep the field closed for long enough after construction was completed.

“Last time, we only kept them off for one growing season,” he said. “Which is why it kind of got pounded away and wind up being a dirt field, which is why the grass didn’t fully establish and led to some of the problems we had.”

Because of the problems, the district’s construction company came and tilled the field in early May, going eight inches down to remove any large debris from the soil. Then the field was reseeded.

As soon as the work was done, there was a period of heavy rain for nearly a week straight. That stopped the seed from taking and ruined the field. The field will have to be regarded and seeded again. That work is set to begin after the end of school in late June.

However, the rain highlighted the drainage problem the field was facing, and the district’s architects are taking steps to address it.

“We asked the architects to look at the drainage and look at the asphalt walking that’s there,” said Bartels. “We’re probably going to have to replace that entire walkway anyway because of where the drainage has to go.”

During construction, new drainage pools had to be installed under the field. The dirt that was excavated was saved and reused to fill in the holes after construction. Because of that, the district’s contractors said, there was no need to test the soil, which was standard practice. It was safe, they said.

But some parents from Watson filed a complaint with the state Department of Environmental Conservation, which is now conducting an investigation.