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A messy NCP street, courtesy of WSSC

The Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission (WSSC)’s water replacement work in north College Park may have completed recently, but it has caused much concerns among the residents.

Residents think the restoration work on these streets are nothing but ”cheap patch work”.

WSSC started the water replacement work about a year ago, which involved approximately 4 miles of water main in our neighborhood. The affected streets are located between the following boundaries: the Beltway to the north, Hollywood Rd. to the south; 53rd Avenue to the west and Baltimore Avenue to the east.

Please see a map of WSSC’s replacement work here. 

In an email to NCPCA, WSSC’s contract manager Robert Spigone has recently said:

Final restoration is currently being done (weather pending) which includes concrete work for sidewalks, driveway, and curb/gutter, asphalt paving of water and sewer trenches, and grading, seeding, stabilizing grass areas disturbed (yards, tree box areas, and R/W’s).

As can be seen in the message, the WSSC only promises “asphalt paving” of the trenches, which is not the same thing as the original construction of our streets.

This is quite contrary to the promise that WSSC made in the water main replacement brochure (please see below), where it said it would restore the paved streets ”as closely as possible to their original appearance“.

Residents expressed concerns about WSSC’s sub-par repair work in this month’s NCPCA meeting.  The residents said they would like to see WSSC restore the streets where they have removed pipes to the condition they were in before the excavation.

The good news is that the MD Delegate Joseline Melnyk was also present at the meeting. Ms. Melnyk, who has recently been appointed as the WSSC sub committee in our area, listened resident’s concern first hand. She promised her office will contact WSSC with residents’ concerns. 

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