PITTSFIELD — On Wednesday, John Ricci pulled on his 16-inch galoshes and stepped into the puddle that had formed in his backyard. He walked until the water nearly reached the tops of his boots — and still had room to go deeper.
The flooding is nothing new. It’s a problem Ricci has been trying to solve for the 40 years he has owned the home.
Ricci, at 9 Newell St., has spent decades fighting a city drainage pipe that ends at the edge of his property, sending stormwater into his backyard whenever it rains. Despite some forward movement toward a solution by city officials in recent years, funding has kept the project stalled.
John Ricci walks through the flooding in the backyard of his Newell Street home in Pittsfield. Ricci is tired of the constant flooding and lack of a solution. Although one is ready to go, funding is holding up the fix. GILLIAN HECK — THE BERKSHIRE EAGLE
"I put hundreds of thousands of dollars in this property, and I like to keep it clean," Ricci said.
"I would like to plant more along this way," he added, pointing to where rising water was encroaching on his lawn as another band of heavy rainfall rolled through, "but I can't; I can't do nothing over there."
Every time it rains, John Ricci says his backyard on Newell Street turns into a small lake due to flooding. GILLIAN HECK — THE BERKSHIRE EAGLE
Ricci's home has been in his family for 98 years, he said. His grandparents bought it in 1928. Ricci bought the property in 1986, and he's dealt with flooding ever since.
There are 18 storm drains between 127 Elm St. and 163 Elm St. that feed into the drainage system flooding Ricci's yard, said Ricardo Morales, commissioner of public works in Pittsfield.
Ricci estimates that — at the flooding's worst — the water stretches 150-feet wide and comes 35 feet into his yard. And, since Ricci in his 16-inch boots still can't wad out into the deepest parts of the pool, he estimates that the water could be as deep as 2 feet.
Even using a conservative estimate — reducing Ricci’s measurements to a pool of water 125 feet wide, 25 feet long and 1 foot deep — the amount of standing water would amount to about 23,375 gallons of water sitting in his yard.
For comparison, a large residential swimming pool typically holds between 20,000 and 35,000 gallons of water.
It's not just the water that Ricci has to deal with, but anything the street drains manage to catch and the push onto his property.
"There's debris that comes up," Ricci said. "There's bottles and cans, nip bottles. Years ago, there was a syringe. That really set me off."
Sometimes, he has to hose off a dirty, swampy film on the grass left by the water.
The problem is exacerbated by the property's location, which is prone to flooding, Morales said.
A stream used to move water from the area to the east branch of the Housatonic, but that stream was infilled sometime around the 1970s or '80s, he said. The city doesn't know who did the infill, when exactly it happened or what materials were used as the land is privately owned. However, the city has not determined whether the material is contaminated or what cleanup would require, Morales said.
City officials are working toward a solution and have been since at least 2020, when former Ward 3 City Councilor Kevin Sherman earmarked some money for the project, said Matthew Wrinn, the councilor for Ward 3 now.
The solution to John Ricci's flooding problem would cost $2.5 million, according to city officials. It would need to reestablish a stream that ran from the area that's flooding to the eastern branch of the Housatonic River, Commissioner of Public Works Ricardo Morales said. GILLIAN HECK — THE BERKSHIRE EAGLE
Wrinn, Morales and other city officials went through the Conservation Commission to develop a design with the help of engineers to correct the flow of drainage water and even began pulling permits, Morales said.
The problem? The price tag: $2.5 million, according to Morales.
That multimillion-dollar-fix comes during an already difficult budget season; one in which the Department of Public Works did not present a capital authorization package for borrowing during budget season, something Morales said has not happened for the last few years.
"Next year, we're going to be in the same boat, unfortunately," Wrinn said. That previously earmarked funding is "less than half" of what is needed, he added.
Wrinn said he might put a petition to reroute some money from another project in front of City Council but doubts its success. If that doesn't work, he'll continue to pursue different funding avenues, he said.
"I feel terrible for John having to deal with that in his yard," Wrinn said. "I signed up to run for office to be able to do this exact thing and help residents solve problems, and this has been a problem I haven't been able to solve."
In the meantime, Ricci still watches his yard turn into what he has dubbed "Adornetto Lake," named after his grandparents. Ricci has VHS tapes recording flooding decades ago. He has wanted to place a fire pit along the fence, looking out to an empty meadow, but that area is underwater, so he's settled for a fire pit closer to his home.
Ricci acknowledged the work Morales and Wrinn have done to find and implement a solution, but he's been waiting for 40 years to have his backyard be truly his.
"I'm so tired and sick of this," he said.
Nate Harrington can be reached at nharrington@berkshireeagle.com or 413-496-6126.
