Two different communities, but still one town, and with one goal!
North Bennington is a separate village, but it is still part of Bennington. While each community has its own highway and water departments, they share one sewer system.
So when Norm Leblanc from North Bennington called RJ Joly in Bennington to ask about sewer manholes on a road that they were planning on repaving, a conversation led to an opportunity.
The street is Pleasant Street in North Bennington. The opportunity was to fix a longstanding issue with the sewer line that existed along that stretch of road. The problem was the original line did not have the proper pitch to allow for the clay sewer line to flow properly. The waste water department had to check this sewer main weekly for years. Plus, there were some water lines that needed replacing. Common sense tells us that since the street was being repaved anyway, now was the time to fix these issues. Town crews spent eleven days doing a very complicated dig with depths up to 13 feet using trench boxes and sloping equipment to run 500’ of new sewer main and services out of the road, fixing the pitch problem, and installing new water services to the curb stops… and yes, finishing with new manholes!
The neighbors were incredibly patient as the work was done and we thank everyone in the neighborhood for their understanding. At one point, crews helped an elderly couple navigate to their home to ensure their safety when excavation work was nearby. All this work for eleven days was very inconvenient for the residents and town crews really appreciated how nice folks were about the situation.
The goal of both communities is simple when it comes to public works: Get it done, do it right!