Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla is intimating that the city will sue PSE&G “to collect damages” sustained due to a main break that left residents without running water for the majority of the week.
By John Heinis/Hudson County View
Bhalla began by thanking residents for their patience after a water main break near the Jersey City border on Monday morning, which he attributed to a PSE&G contractor, led to a boil water advisory late Tuesday and it stayed into effect until Thursday afternoon.
He also thanked emergency personnel, volunteers, and city staff for navigating through the crisis, which also led to the local hospital evacuating non-emergency patients for a brief time.
“I remain extremely disappointed that we were in this situation to begin with, due to circumstances outside of our control, that caused substantial hardship to our city. To that end, today we have sent PSE&G formal notice that the City intends to collect damages incurred as a result of their apparent negligence in conducting underground construction work,” he wrote in a 2:35 p.m. Nixle alert.
“PSE&G has been instructed, through the City’s law department, to preserve all documents and evidence related to their construction work. We intend to hold PSE&G fully accountable for their actions.”
The Mile Square City’s chief elected official also noted that PSE&G’s gas line upgrades have been suspended until they present the Hoboken engineering office with additional safeguards in their plans to prevent something similar from happening again.
Bhalla also said that the city plans to hold Veolia Water “accountable for their very clear failure to call for a timely boil water advisory, that also had a detrimental effect on our residents,” though he also commended their crews on the ground for their “tireless work.”
“As we move forward, we will continue to work diligently to review any and all protocols with our utility companies, to help mitigate the chances of unnecessary infrastructure failures, due to human error, from happening again,” the mayor added.
His remarks came after Corporation Counsel Brian Aloia sent a letter to PSE&G that finally identifed their contract as J. Fletcher Creamer and Son, a Hackensack-based infrastructure contractor.
“Should you intentionally, recklessly, negligently or inadvertently destroy, alter, amend, change, or adjust any of the above mentioned documents, an additional claim for spoliation may be made against you.”
PSE&G and did not immediately return a request for comment, while Veolia declined to comment.
Editor’s note: This story was updated with new information.