Residents fed up with bad water

The water that flows through the faucets, staining the bathtubs and sinks at many homes on Poole Circle in Holbrook, is so rusty that Tracy Loughlin won't let her two small boys bathe in it.

She bundles up Tyler, 5, and John, 7, at the end of a long day at work and drives them 12 miles to her mother's house in Hanover for their baths.

"My water is too rusty and brown and smelly to bathe them in it," said Loughlin, 32. "I don't want to risk it. It can't be too healthy."

Like many residents on the half-circle lined with 1950s ranch houses, the Loughlins don't drink the water. They don't even let their purebred American bulldog, Princess, lap it out of a bowl.

Poole Circle isn't the only Holbrook neighborhood that has had problems with rusty water for years.

But things have gotten so bad on Poole Circle over the past six months that residents recently petitioned selectmen to take action. Now fire hydrants in the neighborhood are on automatic timers to help flush out the system, and water samples have been sent to the state for testing.
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