Haddonfield residents might be seeing a lot of orange and white painting the town. Traffic signs and cones have been put up on some of the town’s roads, indicating construction. This is due to Haddonfield’s long-awaited water and sewer utility infrastructures being improved upon and replaced.
New Jersey American Water and the borough have been working together on several water and sewer main projects that will improve service to residents. NJAW is spending approximately $3.7 million to replace more than two miles of pipe that is near the end of its useful life, and the Haddonfield Roads Program will go into effect after to repave the roads.
“Know we are doing the projects to prevent failures. Infrastructures get old and need to be updated. The work we are doing is with close coordination in the town with their road paving program,” said Carmen Tierno, the senior director of New Jersey American Water’s Southwest Operations.
“You need to keep updating things so they keep working efficiently. Unfortunately, we hadn’t been doing that historically, which drove us to sell the water and sewer utility. They are doing it much faster than we (the town) could have hoped,” Commissioner of Public Works John Moscatelli said.
NJAW and the borough are working together on these projects. NJAW is taking care of the infrastructure improvements, and the borough is taking care of the road improvements after.
“We work very closely with the town. They have a very aggressive road program. We coordinate with the town to align with their program,” Tierno said.
“We are taking care of ours and their high priority areas. When they are done, their utility work will stop and the borough will come in and do our work,” Moscatelli said.
The water infrastructure improvements will ensure Haddonfield residents continue to enjoy safe, reliable water and wastewater services. Residents might see improved water pressure and reduced sewer blockages. It will also help with fire departments’ abilities.
“By going ahead and doing these jobs proactively, we prevent unforeseen failures and road damage. It ensures that it doesn’t get damaged by failure later on,” Tierno said.
“It helps to keep the water and sewer flowing and running properly so residents don’t have service interruptions,” Moscatelli said.
The roads that are being affected are Grove Street, between Lake Street and East Kings Highway; Lakeview Avenue, between Centre Street and Cooper River; West Euclid Avenue, from West End Avenue to Avondale Avenue; and Douglas Avenue and East Park Avenue at Lincoln Avenue. Improvements include replacement of clay and unlined pipe, the cleaning of sediment, adding cement lining, and the use of cement-lined iron pipe and PVC pipe. For a complete list of improvements, see www.haddonfieldsun.com and search New Jersey American Water.
According to Tierno and Moscatelli, the utility projects will not require total road closures or big detours; traffic and residents can usually squeeze by. Both are working together on signage along with the police to direct traffic. Residents affected are also kept in close communication through letters, postcards and door-to-door inspectors.
The infrastructure improvements will be in service by the end of August with temporary paving. The final road restoration will be completed this fall by the borough, except for Grove Street, which is a county road and a county project.
“We wait several weeks for things to settle, for traffic to compact it a little, before final paving,” Tierno said.
Residents will receive communication about the schedule for paving in the fall as parts of the streets will once again be closed. Grove Street repaving has been delayed, according to Moscatelli, as the county ran into some funding and contracting issues. The borough is working with the county to get the street done, but there is no schedule as of yet.
Those are just the visual projects that NJAW is working on. It is also working on other infrastructure work at the sewer pumping stations.
“It might not be visible, but we are really focused on improving operations in town,” Tierno said.
NJAW isn’t the only one focused on improving the town. Moscatelli said the Haddonfield Roads Program is going to start increasing the number of roads it is working on next year as the borough can do it now without borrowing money.
“As time goes on, we’ll make a bigger impact, getting these roads in terrible condition taken care of. We’ll be accelerating that, and in four to five years be in a much better position,” Moscatelli said.
Any information about the roads program or construction in Haddonfield can be found at the borough’s website www.haddonfieldnj.org. Also, NJAW has updates on its Facebook regularly, which can be found at www.facebook.com/njamwater.
NJAW representatives are available every Tuesday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Borough Hall through November to speak to customers.
NJAW will also host an open house for Haddonfield customers at Borough Hall on Wednesday, July 23 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. for residents to ask questions and meet the NJAW team.
