Responding to the Board of Education’s demand to restart work or face consequences, Guerrera Construction returned its equipment to the high school site last week.

At issue is the long-delayed artificial turf field going in at Old Saybrook High School. The field was supposed to be in use last fall, but a drainage test failure put construction on hold.

Superintendent of Schools Jan Perruccio said the district received an email from Guerrera stating it would return heavy equipment to the site last week. Initially, the contractor planned to finish removing the future field’s base drainage layer. Once this work is completed, work to re-install a new base layer could begin.

The contractor and the field design engineer, BSC Group, were reviewing the suppliers and material samples for the new base drainage layer last week. Once a base stone material is approved, the stone material can be ordered from the quarry and then spread out over the drainage infrastructure.

The prior base stone layer, installed by Guerrera in September 2014, failed to pass a drainage test because it removed water from the surface too slowly. As a result, the contractor had to remove that original base layer material in October 2014 in order to replace it with material that would meet the project specifications.

The process to install the new base drainage layer is expected to begin soon.