City vowed to help with flooding, but didn't

Flooding at Rockwell Park.
Photo by Christopher MacNeill, used with permission.

BRISTOL – There’s a simple reason why there’s so much flooding along the Pequabuck River and Copper Mine Brook whenever a heavy rain hits: there’s no place for all the water to go.

All of the rain that falls on Bristol, much of Burlington and big parts of both Plymouth and Harwinton winds up pouring into those two relatively small streams.

Thanks to unchecked development over many years, which turned open space into pavement, the water that falls tends to flow downhill quickly into already strained streams that soon become raging torrents that flow down city streets and through residents’ basements.

It makes for a costly, discouraging mess every time it happens. This year, it also proved deadly, with Hurricane Irene’s floodwaters carrying one man off to his doom.

But after a spate of four major floods between 2004 and 2007, the city vowed to take action.

Officials discovered that the City Council was responsible for dealing with flooding in Bristol and it moved to hold special sessions monthly to tackle the issue.

But about the time Mayor Art Ward took office in 2007, the momentum stalled for the same reason government often drags to a halt: money.  Click here for the rest of the story.

Also, the missing canoer has been found dead.

Copyright 2011. All rights reserved. Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com