Hoboken May File Suit Against Suez After 14 Water Main Breaks

HOBOKEN, NJ — After 14 water main breaks in 64 days, Hoboken has had enough, its mayor says.

On Tuesday – following a weekend that saw Suez Water at the scene of two, large water main breaks – Mayor Ravinder Bhalla announced that the situation has reached “emergency” proportions. During a press conference, Bhalla said that municipal officials plan to declare an emergency while investigators try to answer an urgent question: why is the city seeing so many breaks?

In the meanwhile, municipal officials plan to file a lawsuit against Suez to recoup “damages to the city,” Bhalla said. The mayor added that he wants to work with the City Council to “re-bid the work being done by Suez.”

• See related article: Those Are The Breaks, Hoboken: More Water Mains Burst (PHOTOS)
• See related article: Suez Can Resume Hoboken Work, But There Are Conditions

Hoboken Councilman Michael DeFusco issued the following statement about the water main breaks and the city’s response on Tuesday:

“Hoboken’s water infrastructure is at a breaking point, but as urgent as it is to fix this problem we shouldn’t be looking for scapegoats, we should be finding solutions. This ‘emergency’ isn’t a new phenomenon that suddenly appeared this week -- it’s a problem that’s been going on in Hoboken for the last decade. It’s time we start finding holistic solutions through comprehensive planning, and I do not believe that getting the city tied up in another costly lawsuit is necessarily the right approach.”

DeFusco continued:

“In the past, the City Council has not been privy to negotiations between prior administrations and the city’s private water provider. I am calling on the Mayor and on Suez Water to change that and to have an open and transparent dialogue on this issue before rushing into a lawsuit that will only benefit attorneys and not residents. I truly hope that the Mayor will work collaboratively with the City Council as well as Suez in an effort to find a solution to our chronic water infrastructure issues. That solution should involve substantial investment in the system over the long term, integrating new technologies to improve service and better managing short term problems like main breaks.”

Rich Henning, senior vice president of communications with Suez Water, provided Patch with the following statement on Tuesday:

"Hoboken's water infrastructure is over a century old in many places, and unless Mayor Bhalla stops pointing fingers and starts investing in the system the problems residents are facing will continue to get worse, not better. The City of Hoboken owns the system and is ultimately responsible for making investments necessary for improving it, and SUEZ has proposed making major investments into it several times in the past only to have the city continue to neglect its infrastructure needs. SUEZ stands ready to do what is necessary to solve this problem by investing the millions of dollars needed to replace these functionally obsolete pipes and also to improve services for residents by installing new technology to more quickly identify leaks and restore service faster. We hope that the City of Hoboken will work with us in this effort instead of pursuing an unnecessary lawsuit that will only burden the city's taxpayers while doing nothing to invest in the city's infrastructure."

A Suez spokesperson provided statistics on water main breaks in Hoboken from 2001 to 2018 (see below). Suez also provided a photo of a pipe removed from a recent break at 5th and Jefferson that dates back to 1897.

RECENT WATER MAIN BREAKS IN HOBOKEN

On Aug. 25, a main break at Newark and Hudson streets caused service disruptions in the area and snarled nearby traffic. Mayor Ravinder Bhalla said that the break was located next to "many service lines and fiber optics" and required repair work from Fletcher Creamer and Verizon.

Suez Water reported that evening that repairs were made to a 16-inch water main in the area. Roads remained closed to the affected zone and surrounding streets.

The incident at Newark and Hudson came just four days after Suez repaired a separate water main break at the intersection of Observer Highway and Jefferson Street. Residents of a nearby apartment building on Adams Street were still without water a day later.

• See related article: Hoboken Main Breaks, Building Left With No Water

On Sunday, Aug. 26, another water main broke in Hoboken... this time on 13th between Madison and Jefferson streets.

Following Sunday's break, Bhalla ordered SUEZ Water to immediately end work on its water meter pit project in southwest Hoboken and other non-emergent operations "until the cause of the frequent breaks is fully investigated."

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Photo: Ravi Bhalla, Mayor of Hoboken