The new renovations at M Street Park opened to mixed reviews. One of the biggest complaints is the new splash pad at the playground – sometimes it works – sometimes it doesn’t. This past weekend, there was a power outage in the area of M Street Park at M and Second from 7pm Saturday until 3am on Sunday. On Sunday, Clean Harbor Trucks were in the area, some residents took to social media and speculated that the trouble was generated by the splash pad sprinkler system.
CIS reached out to the City of Boston’s Parks Department and heard back from Ryan Woods who stated the following in regards to the faulty splash pad:
The spray feature is run off a motherboard. After we noticed a couple problems, we learned that there is a manufacturer’s defect in the motherboard which causes it to run constantly and drain the batteries. This new defect on this product was noticed at parks nationwide this season. The company sent along a new motherboard that we expect to arrive today. With last week’s heat, we decided to put the spray feature on a timer and let it run from 9am-8pm until the new motherboard arrives. The contractor has been changing the batteries every morning to ensure it is operating for each day (we did not put it on today because of the rain). Last Wednesday during our concert the spray feature worked until 6:40 pm and then was off because the motherboard drained the batteries. So bottom line is once this new board is installed this week the water feature should be working properly between 9am-8pm each day.
So the splash pad runs on batteries and should be fixed this week and has nothing to do with the power outage. As for why Eversource and Clean Harbors were working in the area, the reason is unknown but appears to be just a coincidence.
Update: Outage officially reported outage for 212 customers at 5:33 PM on Saturday. Sunday morning explanation was that outage was caused by damage to electrical equipment. Eversource is still on site @ M & E Second as of Monday. (Thanks, Ginny!)
Quick clarification based on update voicemails I received from Eversource. Outage officially reported outage for 212 customers @ 5:33 PM Saturday. Sunday morning explanation was that outage was caused by damage to electrical equipment.
Eversource is still on site @ M & E Second today.