Village: DPW Needs Your Help To Identify Potholes

(Part three of a three-part series)

Now that Rockville Centre Patch has outlined the worst potholes on both the and sides of the village, we asked village officials how the worst potholes are identified, the frequency in which they get filled and how much it costs. Here's what they said.

According to village spokesman Jeff Kluewer, the village's highway department superintendent drives through village roads on a daily basis, denotes which ones have the worst potholes, and adds them to a repairs list. Once a crew visits the location, he said, they review the entire block and fill in everything they find.

"Large, deep holes are targeted when they’re seen or reported, but the crews look for and fill in the small ones too, before they grow into large ones," Kluewer said.

Kluewer pointed to a video on the Minnesota Department of Transportation's Web site to explain how potholes form. He said that contrary to what residents may think, this year has been a normal one in terms of the number of potholes. 

Residents are encouraged to report dangerous potholes by calling 678-9288. The village uses resident complaints to compile its lists of which ones need repair, Kluewer explained.

Through the end of March, Department of Public Works crews will make daily rounds on village streets repairing potholes, Kluewer said. Crews will fill the village's "hot box" apparatus — a machine attached to the back end of trucks that holds and keeps asphalt hot — with four tons of asphalt, which officials say is enough for one day's work.

Kluewer said he could not say how many are filled per day because the size and depth varies for each pothole, but since it's been a normal year in terms of amount, he said there is more than enough money to repair them all. "The asphalt costs about $75 - $80 per ton and unlike snow removal, there is no problem with the budget for asphalt," Kluewer said. "Since the work is done in-house by highway department crews, there is no added expense for the labor."

The village's road improvement plan for 2011, however, will not change because of potholes on other village roads. Kluewer said pothole repairs are completely independent of the engineering evaluation of the roadways.