In the News

Nick Vallone had just passed the Ashley Cemetery on Riverdale Street in West Springfield Thursday when he heard metal connect with asphalt.

At the traffic lights, roughly 100 feet away, another driver pulled up, saying that he saw Vallone’s hubcap fly off. The cause? Potholes.

“I’m just driving along and I hear a, ‘boom, boom’,” Vallone told MassLive.

Before seeing the damage, he knew. “My tire is messed up.”

Vallone told MassLive he was going about 35 mph.

Potholes are an annual reality for Massachusetts drivers ushering in a change of seasons.

MassLive spoke to various business owners along that stretch of road on Route 5 in West Springfield all of whom believe that the potholes will cause a serious crash if they’re not addressed. The business people told MassLive that it’s lucky it hasn’t already happened.

It’s been an issue for years.

“Riverdale Street up by where Brightside is, it’s like a minefield. When they do patch it, they’re very selective of what they patch. They never complete the whole job. You’ve got to drive all over, if they took it and they did it right, it wouldn’t happen,” Ed Thibodeau of West Springfield said to Western Mass News in 2017.

The Massachusetts House and Senate passed the $350 million transportation funding bill unanimously, sending it to Gov. Charlie Baker on Friday. Lawmakers from both branches were looking for $200 million for the statewide municipal road repair program known as Chapter 90, which will deliver funds to all 351 cities and towns.

U.S. Rep. Richard E. Neal, the longtime Congressman representing 87 communities in Western Massachusetts, met with West Springfield officials on Thursday to speak on the progress being made and hear any issues that need to be addressed in his role as a U.S. congressman and chairman of Ways and Means.

In August of last year, a large sinkhole appeared on the corner of Taylor and Dwight Streets in neighboring Springfield, just days after another major break on East Columbus Avenue in Springfield South End.

“The ground was shaking pretty good,” said a man who emerged from the Western Commonwealth building who wanted to remain anonymous. He told MassLive that the shaking went on for 15-20 minutes.

The cause of the damage was a water pipe under the road that was over a century old, according to Jaime Bartak, communications manager for the Springfield Water and Sewer Commission.

The water breaks came the morning after Tropical Storm Isaias plowed through the region bringing high winds that knocked down limbs and uprooted trees onto power lines, leaving hundreds and thousands of people without electricity.

During Thursday’s meeting, West Springfield Town Councilor George R. Kelly stated to the U.S. congressman that when the town started to discuss rebuilding the Coburn School, they discovered that many of the sewer pipes in that neighborhood were well over a hundred years old and made of Chestnut trees. The wooden pipes were held in place by cement, Kelly added.

The school opened in December 2020.

Jeffrey R. Auer, deputy director of water in the Department of Public Works in West Springfield told MassLive that much of the infrastructure across the town needs to be replaced. The problem, like in many towns and cities in the area, is the cost of such an initiative.

Brush Hill community in West Springfield saw a pipe burst last weekend.

“People actually heard it pop,” said Auer.

He and his team were able to turn off the flow of water within the hour. But, he said, it’s like “putting on band-aids” and “kicking it down the road.” There is nothing else he, or anyone else for that matter, can do without major funding in infrastructure.

West Springfield residents noticed yellow-tinge to the water coming from their faucet.

The yellowing, according to Auer, was due to the rust being taken off the pipes after work crews had plugged the leak. Public water systems are compelled to test for primary contaminants on a regular basis, but testing for secondary contaminants is voluntary. In other words, rusty water might be gross and inconvenient, but it’s not dangerous to drink or bathe in, Auer stressed.

“I’ve spoken to the congressman about the infrastructure bill and the fact that any money he can get us will be hugely helpful,” said Reichelt. “Because our infrastructure, not just here but everywhere, is old and beginning to fail.”

Across region, said a West Springfield employee to MassLive, many of the pipes are roughly a century old and it’s only a matter of time before they crack, or like in the case in Springfield, suffer a catastrophic collapse.

The Springfield’s Water and Sewer Commission announced in April that a water pipe rehabilitation project on Berkshire Avenue between Bay and Harvey Streets. The project includes upgrading segments of the 24″ water main and various valves. It is part of planned upgrades to prioritized areas of the drinking water distribution system. The existing pipe dates from 1936.

Although there are no solid plans for water pipe repairs in West Springfield, money is being allotted for infrastructure across the state.

“America’s infrastructure is falling down,” said Neal. “It’s just in bad shape and part of it has been that there was a time when this was the easiest thing to do in Congress. Everybody broadly agreed, but then that got caught up in the partisan warfare.”

Neal addressed the concerns over infrastructure at the town hall and said he spoke to Jerome Powell, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board a couple of weeks ago and Janet Yellen, the secretary of the treasury to discuss the infrastructure package.

A bipartisan group of senators are also working on a $1 trillion infrastructure program to repair roads, bridges, transit, rail, clean energy and clean water.

“We’re talking about broadband expansion, highways, bridges, roadways, airports and rail,” said Neal. “I’ve spoken extensively to Gov. Baker about this. Can’t say that I’ve gotten them over the goal line yet, but I’m not going to leave it alone.”

Neal was eager to highlight the successes that he and his fellow U.S. lawmakers have had.

West Springfield will receive $13.2 million of relief grants as part of the American Rescue Plan (ARP) federal relief package. Of the total amount, almost $2.6 million will go into the town at the discretion of the town council and mayor. The school department will receive the remaining $10.4 million.

Under ARP, qualifying families starting Thursday will receive $300 a month per child from birth to age 5 and $250 a month per child for children 6 to 17 years old.

“The other significant event that’s happening today,” said Neal. “Is that electronic deposits will have, as of last night and today, reached 60 million children in America.”

In the congressman’s district, the initiative will help 85.8% of children, lifting 8,300 out of poverty. The initiative will last for a year and Neal detailed he would like to see a form of this benefit made permanent.

“The ARP money that we’re getting is not enough to do everything we need to do, but it’s definitely going to be a huge start in fixing our infrastructure,” West Springfield Mayor William C. Reichelt told MassLive. “Water and sewers are two of the main things that we’ve been working on ourselves over the past five years.”