For the past couple of days, construction crews have been hard at work at the intersection of Broad Street and Belleville Avenue, relining pipes to the township’s water supply.  The work, part of an ongoing effort to improve the town’s infrastructure, began in April and is expected to last till August, said workers at the site.

“We’re done about ten streets so far,” said Pipeline Foreman Lee DeMelo of Metra Industries, the company handling the project. “They’re cleaning and relining the water main.”   

According to DeMelo, it is a job that needs to be done once every thirty or forty years.  “In lieu of replacing the water main, they reline the water main,” he said.  “It saves the city a whole lot of money.”

Dave Manson, a truck driver for Teamster 560, said the process involves relining the existing pipes with concrete.  As he spoke, workers labored in the near 100-degree heat, shoveling muddy water out of the hole in the street about four feet deep.

“We have to do this at every location,” explained Manson.  “In some places we have to replace lead pipes with copper.”

Manson said his team was going street by street “everywhere in the vicinity of Bloomfield.”  He wasn’t sure how long they would be at that particular location, which is in front of Bloomfield High School, but said they might be working again Saturday.

“I hear it’s supposed to be between one hundred five and one hundred ten degrees tomorrow,” he said.  “That’s ok.”

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