Bloomfield trucks are out and filling early potholes

BLOOMFIELD, NJ — The Bloomfield Department of Public Works and Parks should be done with its pothole repair work by the end of next month.
“We’re out there every day with the asphalt machine,” Anthony Nesto, the department director said earlier this week. “We are repairing every pothole we can get to.”

Where potholes are located comes to public works from two sources: public works employees and residents using social media.
“We don’t monitor Facebook,” Nesto said. “Residents should call us direct.”

The best material to use for pothole repairs is hot patch. This is asphalt purchased heated and used quickly. But Nesto said that material is not available until early April so cold patch is used. This type of asphalt material is purchased cold. Homeowners can buy it at home improvement stores. However, the Bloomfield DPW buys seven tons at a time. Ironically, although hot patch is preferred, it costs less. Nesto said hot patch is $59/ton while cold patch is $130/ton and contains more chemicals to keep it soft without heat.

“Hot patch will not be made until April 2,” Nesto said. “So we’re throwing cold patch into our asphalt machine.”
The asphalt machine can hold 3 tons of cold patch and heat it to 350 degrees which makes it adhere better. A pothole is cleaned and a tack coat — glue for potholes — is applied. In goes the heated cold patch which is compressed. Nesto said while hot patch is better, heated cold patch gets the potholes filled now. Cold patch, because of availability, is used from November to March.

“We’re trying to get quantity, not quality,” he said.
Bloomfield has 103 miles of street, according to Nesto, of which 14 miles are maintained by Essex County.
“But we consider every street a Bloomfield street,” he said.

What this means is if his pothole crew sees some potholes on a county road along the border of a township road, it will be filled.
“The bottom line is we’re responsible for municipal roads and the county for county roads,” Nesto said. “But we work together. And if I get a call about a big hole on a county road and it’s a safety issue, we’ll take care of it.”

Nesto said there is going to be considerable repaving of Bloomfield roads this year, but that does not put pothole repairs on the back burner now.

“Soon as they start making asphalt, we’ll begin to use the hot patch,” he said. “It’s hot when loaded.”