Letter to ‘Press’ yields new water fountain and clean-up job

On the same day that The Riverdale Press published a point of view piece by Roberta Strugger — a Kingsbridge Heights resident who detailed her concerns about ongoing construction at Fort Independence Park — the writer said she returned to the site to find that two of the seven issues that she brought up in the piece had been addressed by the city’s Department of Parks and Recreation.

In her piece, Ms. Strugger said the department fails to clean the park adequately on a regular basis. According to her, the park’s garbage cans overflowed with trash and are “picked up, with luck, every third day.” She also noted that the park had no working water fountains. 

But Ms. Strugger said last Thursday, the Parks Department “swept the park clean.” They also called in a plumber to install a new drinking fountain near the benches and the comfort station. 

“Had that not been published, they wouldn’t have done what they’re doing,” she said as she stood on a small hill with her Labradoodle overlooking the fenced-off northern region of the park on Aug. 28.

The Parks Department did not answer a press inquiry.

Kennedy McDonnell, the licensed plumber who installed the drinking fountain at Fort Independence, said that the new fountain drains into a dry-well draining system with lead-free valves.

“It’s an elaborate system so that nobody gets contaminated water,” he said before adding that the new fountain is flowing to existing elements. “You have to match what you have,” he said, pointing to the metal plates that concealed the pipes below the ground.  

Mr. McDonnell said that the installation was originally pushed back because contractors were waiting to receive parts of the fountain that were not available at from the manufacturer earlier on. 

“As the job got delayed, the [health and safety] code changed, so you have to follow the law,” he explained.

Originally, “lead-free” waterways were supposed to have no more than 8 percent lead in pipes and fixture fittings based on the Safe Drinking Water Act, but now it cannot be more than 0.25 percent, he said.