Plenty of Finger Pointing in Hoboken, But No Immediate Solution for Water Main Breaks
After 14 water main breaks in 64 days, the city of Hoboken and its water company are pointing fingers.
On Tuesday, mayor Ravi Bhalla announced the city would start looking for a new utility to run its water system, blaming the spike in main breaks on a water meter project SUEZ Water began on June 23.
"In our view, there can only be one explanation: SUEZ has mismanaged our system," Bhalla told the press outside of City Hall.
Bhalla said the project "strained the system beyond its breaking point," and will ask local officials for permission to start the bidding process at a Sept. 5 City Council meeting. He said the city also plans on suing SUEZ for damages if an upcoming investigation finds the company responsible for recent leaks.
But Rich Henning, senior vice president of communications for SUEZ, said any construction project in Hoboken could cause pipe breaks.
"Why is that? Simply because the system is so old," Henning said. "One hundred-year-old pipes have outlasted their usefulness."
Henning said the city owns the water system, and that system has pipes that date back to the late 1800s. He also said SUEZ has proposed capital improvement programs in the past two decades to no avail.
According to SUEZ, spikes in water main breaks during the summer aren't new. There are an average of 12 each summer; back in 2009, there were 27 breaks in July and August.
New development is also taxing the aging water system. The city had about 33,000 residents when SUEZ took over in 1994. There are close to 60,000 today.
"Growth and activity goes on everywhere, and if you have a system that's designed to deal with it, you have no problems," said Chris Riat, who's managed the SUEZ operation in Hoboken for over seven years.
But Riat said the old pipes in Hoboken can't take it.
Local officials are also taking the recent breaks as an opportunity to revisit the contract SUEZ has held with the city since 1994.
Under the current contract, SUEZ is responsible for $350,000 a year for repairs — anything over that falls on the city, said council member Tiffanie Fisher.
"Under our current contract, SUEZ keeps all of the upside and Hoboken, who owns the water system, pays for all the repairs except for a small contribution," Fisher told the press Tuesday. "That doesn't seem like it makes sense, does it? We bear all the risk and they make all the profit."
Officials say the city has allocated about $5 million annually to upgrading its water infrastructure since 2016.
Meanwhile, residents have grown used to frequent water main breaks.
"All the time, it's fairly common," said 55-year-old Paul Amante, who's lived in Hoboken for over 20 years.
"I don't know whose fault it is, but we're dealing with infrastructure that was put in around the civil war. A lot of this has been deferred maintenance for, you know, decades," he said.
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