Storms, breaks mean Saugus DPW crews get no holiday break

SAUGUS-The holiday season has provided no breaks for Department of Public Works crews, who have been chasing snow storms, water breaks and the like for the last few weeks.Superintendent Joseph Attubato, who is still out on medical leave but can’t help but stay involved, said his crew has been running ragged since just before Christmas.Three water breaks on Wilson Street, Cliff Road and Overlea Avenue sent Attubato’s men out into the cold once again to battle the town’s aging pipelines.”They weren’t major, but two were water mains and one was a water service,” he said.Attubato said they were typical of the kind of breaks the town has been suffering for years due to woefully outdated water lines. He said when the lines were first installed, in some cases around the turn of the century, the contractors backfilled the area with rocks and debris. Over time the debris has shifted and essentially crushed old waterlines.While the town has suffered about the same number of water breaks this year as it had at this time last year, 15, Attubato said the breaks are not as repetitive as they have been in the past. He credited the Massachusetts Water Resource Authority’s no-interest loan program that he takes advantage of annually to create the water main project.”The water breaks are expected, but even (the numbers) are coming down,” he said. “If not for the water main project we’d be buried up to our ears in repairs. We don’t have to run around like we used to with breaks occurring anywhere and everywhere.”Along with chasing water breaks, Attubato said his crews have been busy trying to refill sand barrels as quickly as possible.”And we’re filling potholes,” he said. “We’ve almost caught up on the potholes.”Attubato said while the holes, caused largely by frost heaves, are being filled, it is not with “the good stuff.” Asphalt companies don’t make what Attubato calls the good hot top during the winter months. Therefore, the potholes will be filled again in the spring with longer-lasting hot top.”We’re busier this year than we were last because of the storms,” he added. “But we’re better off today than we’ve ever been in terms of water breaks.”