Irrigation Project Advances for Washington School Athletic Field
An initiative to irrigate the athletic field at Washington Primary School is slowly advancing, with work expected to be completed next summer. The project was authorized by district residents last May with costs covered by the Huntington School District’s capital reserve fund.
The field is used by the Huntington High School junior varsity boys’ and girls’ soccer and lacrosse teams, as well as Washington School’s physical education classes, students at recess and community groups. Voters approved spending up to $64,000 on the project.
Currently, the field features large areas consisting of hard soil and stones. The rest of the field is comprised of grass and weeds maintained as a lawn. “Without irrigation and with the type of intensive use this field experiences, it is virtually impossible to maintain a soft grassy surface,” Superintendent John J. Finello said.
Shortly after voters approved irrigating the field, Assistant Superintendent David H. Grackin said he “requested a project number from the State Education Department, which has been generated.” SED must approve any capital project undertaken by a school district.
In August, Huntington School Board members approved a contract with Burton, Behrendt and Smith, the district’s architectural and engineering firm, to design the irrigation project along with two district projects approved last May by residents.
“The [SED] approval process for a project such as this will be somewhere between 16-20 weeks,” Mr. Grackin said. The project can’t be completed soon enough for coaches, athletes and their parents, including one Huntington High School PTA President Anne Connell who spoke at a late August School Board meeting about the field’s condition.
District officials looked for an alternate site for the soccer teams to use this fall. However, fields at Flower Hill and Jefferson schools did not meet size regulations for interscholastic high school soccer. The lower field at Woodhull Intermediate School was also ruled out since the surface there is similar to the one at Washington School.
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