Groveland Making Progress on $1.2 Million Water Pipe Project

Replacement of water mains continues in Groveland. (Frank Komola photograph for WHAV News.)

As anyone who’s driven across town from School Street, along Gardner Street and on to Main Street near the soccer fields has seen, the old is being replaced by the new on one of the major water distribution lines for Groveland.

Backhoes, dump trucks and construction workers are moving quickly to dig up existing, aged pipe and replacing it. New 12-inch pipe stacked near the solar panel field and along the roadways from School Street to the corner of Washington and Main Street await installation.

The town is undertaking the project this spring into the summer after the town approved the estimated at $1.2 million cost of the project and acquired necessary bonding to finance it. The work has moved along quickly down Gardner Street, the most disruptive section of the job, given the one way only option along Main Street from the Groveland Diner to Shanahan Field. With a large deep hole being dug on Gardner Street, and the one-way direction of that area of Main Street, detoured traffic had to make their way around the area using Washington, Center and School Streets to come from Bradford over to Groveland Center Business District. With that section now completed, traffic can again make its way around the remaining work on Main Street.

But, most residents appeared happy with the 10 days of detours if it eliminated the costs associated with repairs to the old pipes, particularly along the Main Street section. “That section of pipe had been installed in the 1940s and had required more and more frequent repair and service disruptions to the town in recent years,” said Thomas D. Cusick Jr., Groveland’s water and sewer superintendent.

“It makes perfect sense to do the work, and the resurfacing of Gardner Street will certainly quiet the traffic noise,” said Pleasant Street resident Marion Branden. Branden lives right at a corner that intersects Gardner Street, and the automobile and commercial vehicles bouncing along the deteriorating road surface shook the neighborhood homes. But, the end is near. “Groveland is a great town and officials are always doing things like this to improve it,” Branden said.

The biggest challenge going forward is installing new pipe across the culvert near Washington and Main Street.