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Waterline breaks plague Howland neighborhood
By Ed Runyan
HOWLAND
The current and future service directors for Niles are offering no solutions now to help residents of Ridgelawn Avenue Southeast in Howland who have had two waterline breaks since Thursday and about seven this year.
Ridgelawn residents get their water from the city of Niles, so it’s the city’s responsibility to maintain the lines. Howland Township provides most other services.
“Financially, you can’t [replace] all those waterlines,” said James DePasquale, who will take over Jan. 1 as Niles service director.
DePasquale worked 31 years in the Niles engineering department, the last 15 as capital-improvements inspector, meaning he oversaw all construction projects the last 15 years before his retirement in 2003.
DePasquale was meeting with current service director Neil Buccino on Monday when The Vindicator stopped to ask Buccino about a complaint from one unidentified Ridgelawn resident.
DePasquale said he always organized projects such as waterline replacements to coincide with other projects, such as paving or sewer-line replacements.
Buccino said there have been a lot of waterline problems on the east and west sides of North Road in recent years, including on Ridgelawn, but said he didn’t perceive the problem on Ridgelawn to be more pronounced than other nearby streets. The Ridgelawn waterline is believed to have been installed near 1960.
The city did recently replace 40 feet of waterline along North Road near Vallacamp Avenue, which was the first time during Buccino’s eight years as service director that such a large section of waterline was replaced, he said.
Typically, waterline repairs only involve a couple of feet of new pipe, but he believes 10 feet or more of pipe was replaced Thursday on Ridgelawn.
DePasquale said it’s not surprising that Ridgelawn experienced a broken waterline Thursday morning and then another one Monday because waterlines are fragile, and excavating one section can damage other sections.
Ridgelawn resident Shirley Bland said the waterline broke three times in her yard since July, at least seven times on Ridgelawn since July, and about a dozen times or more in the past five to 10 years.
One unidentified resident said the water has been off about six times in the past 10 years, four to five times this year. That resident said having water off all day Thursday, Christmas Eve, was a hardship because it made it hard to get ready for holiday plans.
DePasquale said it’s better for the resident if the project is planned ahead of time so the city can give notice to the residents the water will be off on a certain date.
“You’re in the shower, and boom, it goes off,” he said of the water. “Our guys don’t want to be called out either in the middle of Christmas,” DePasquale said.