Jobs Pond in Portland is finally getting smaller after approximately six months of rising water levels that flooded homes and displaced residents.
On Saturday, multiple pumps were installed, paid for by state and federal funds. The pumps were put in on the YMCA’s Camp Ingersoll property, and run a few miles into the Connecticut River.
As of Tuesday, residents report that the water has gone down about 10 inches.
“It’s awesome, we just keep listening!”
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For Ellen Mantel, the sound of the pumps is music to her ears.
“We’re starting to see the yards come back, the basements are finally drying out,” Mantel, a lifelong resident of Jobs Pond, said. “The water came up to the screens on the side of the house. It was up to basically my shoulders. At one point, I was using waders and had to stand on my tip toes.”
Mantel and her neighbors have been dealing with this headache since the winter. They fought hard to keep water out of their homes by running sump pumps around the clock, racking up electric bills.
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“Every big storm, we’d get seven or eight inches of rise in the pond water. We just kept adding bags, adding more bags, putting in more pumps, just trying to keep the water out,” she said. “[My mom] estimates about $6,200 in electric bills. It’s just crazy, the output of money was just nuts.”
They’re now onto the next daunting task of cleaning up.
“It’s a lot of muck, silt, mud,” she said.
While it’s good news, the pumps are a temporary fix. The residents want a permanent solution.
The town has committed to finding one.
“They’ve applied for monies that will help to do some research into finding that permanent solution. There have been some proposals, we’re not sure what might work out, what might not work out,” Mantel said. “We are very hopeful that there will be a solution. We certainly won’t let people forget about it.”
Mantel thanked NBC Connecticut for first reporting on the issue back in March.
“Nobody was really listening, and it wasn’t until the media actually got involved, and thankfully you folks came and did some pieces on us, that people finally started listening,” she said. “We were in dire straits. We didn’t know if we were gonna lose all our houses.”
Portland First Selectman Ryan Curley said in a statement, “The town is thrilled to see this project moving after months of perpetration. We could not have done it without the help from our partners at the state and federal level, particularly Senator Blumenthal and NRCS as well as the Governor’s office and the numerous state agencies (DEEP, DPH, DOT, DEMHS, etc). With the help of NRCS, the town is now beginning the process of exploring a permanent solution.”
