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The Big Cat and No Parking

Progress continued with Tearin’ up East Street (continued) and the dig up and pipe replacement. In reality this has been an all summer project. The street will probably be repaved at the end of August.

What a view!

I actually got a kick out of the machinery. These pics are from June 28th to July 7th.

Economic Impact

This is the NO Parking sign in front of my place on July 7th. I have only done an informal study, but this has been tough on business.

We are now halfway through August and there has been work going on off and on through last week. Now there is something of a lull which is great!

It has been difficult on residents and businesses wherever this work has been going on. We know it has to be done, and certainly this is far better than having pipes fail in the winter. Still, I can certainly say that I will be happy when all is back to normal!

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Northfield gets much needed water main upgrades

It was June 26, 2015 at 7:00am and workers are commencing with replacing water pipes that had been installed way back in 1906. Several other locations are also being worked on this summer, all of are important to the community. Now, early in the morning I can see the workers digging up the street at the intersection of Route 12 and East Street. They look like a small crowd of yellow jackets!

We knew this was coming, and had also received a reminder notice from the Town Manger, Jeff Schulz. At the other end of East Street the road forks into steep Turkey Hill and also King Street. King Street happens to lead to the Memorial Park. (Town swimming pool and baseball fields) Pipes will be replaced going down these streets as well. The Memorial Park was unavailable for some time and also Turkey Hill could not be used. I don’t know how they could of done that any other way though. The town did have an emergency medical rig available just in case someone needed help while Turkey Hill was not passable.

Looking down the other way I see this big metal thing. Still don’t know what it is called, but it looks like a trash bin.

A couple of days later…

Now it is July 29th at 9:30 AM and up “my” street they came, steadily progressing along, tearing up the pavement with care.

Close to 5:00 PM and quite a bit of digging, replacement and then packing the street back down has occurred.

My impression so far is that this kind of project is not always a simple process and of course you can run into unexpected difficulties.

It was occasionally rather loud when they were using the cat and then covering the pipes back up. This sent vibrations through the buildings that reminded me of a thunderstorm, but with more shaking! It was really something you don’t experience everyday and seemed a bit bizarre since I spend alot of time down there.

I didn’t take pictures every day and the project progressed in stages over a month or so. After about three weeks there was a lull and then they came back and dug the street up again to hook up the pipes to the buildings.

The workers were very nice and they entertained my occasional questions about the process.

More pictures later!