ATHOL — In February, Athol’s Selectboard endorsed a pair of Proposition 2½ debt exclusions totaling $3.2 million. On Monday, April 4, voters casting ballots in the Annual Town Election will decide whether they, too, support borrowing the money to repair several bridges and to purchase a new pumper truck for the Fire Department. If the debt exclusions are approved at the polls, voters will need to endorse them again at the Annual Town Meeting.
Fire Chief Joseph Guarnera told the Athol Daily News, “The Athol Fire Department runs on one ladder and three pumpers. The ladder truck is 16 years old and in good condition. Then we have a frontline piece, which is Engine 1 — that’s a pumper. Engine 1 is brand new; it replaced a 46-year-old pumper last year.”
The new engine, which arrived in Athol in January, was purchased with a grant for $605,000.
“The second pumper we have is another frontline pumper, which is Engine 4,” Guarnera continued. “Engine 4 is only 10 years old, but it’s in fair to good condition. This pumper was recalled many years ago because of the engine. Athol did not take part in that recall; I don’t know why it did not. But this pump has cost over $25,000, almost $35,000 to repair just in the last year. So, it’s really not a reliable piece, in my opinion, to be used as a frontline piece.”
Guarnera then explained the department also has a 25-year-old backup pumper; Engine 3.
“It’s in fair condition, but it’s truly at the end of its life expectancy,” he said. “This is the engine I’m looking to replace.”
The National Fire Protection Association, said the chief, recommends that frontline engines be no more than 10 years old, and backups no older than 25 years.
“Since I’ve been chief,” said Guarnera, “the town of Athol has been very understanding of my concerns and the needs of the Athol Fire Department, which is fantastic. Town officials have been more than understanding, and the residents have always been kind and supportive of me and of the department.
“I would not be doing my due diligence if I did not make this request behalf of the department, for the safety of my firefighters and the safety of Athol residents and those in surrounding communities.”
What the community doesn’t know, Guarnera told the Athol Daily News, is that, many times, “there is little or no fire or EMS protection in the town.”
“Some of the reasons for this,” he said, “is the apparatus is out for repair for weeks at a time. We’ve actually had other towns cover Athol, which puts an unbelievable stress and increase on response time. Other times, we’ve borrowed apparatus from other towns, such as Orange and Barre, even Royalston, because our apparatus was down.
“The other reason is economic. The price of emergency equipment, such as fire engines and ambulances, go up an average of 16 percent a year. The longer we wait, the more it’s going to cost to replace any of the apparatus.”
Guarnera noted that the pumper, which was purchased last year for $605,000, would cost between $720,000 and $725,000 this year; next year, the estimate for the same truck is $814,000, $944,000 the following year, and over a million dollars in another four years.
“Believe me,” Guarnera said, “if I could get another grant to purchase another pump, I would. The reality is it’s not going to happen. We were one of only two departments that got a grant for a new pumper along the whole East Coast last year.
“The Athol Fire Department was one of the busiest in this area last year, with over 3,000 calls with only four members per shift. So, adequate equipment is of utmost importance. The engine we just got was an 11-month build, now the build is going to be 18 months or more. So, if the town approves the pump, we’re not even going to see it until late 2023, and Engine 3 will be 27 years old by that time.”
Guarnera said approval of the debt exclusion would put his department in the position of not having to purchase a new pumper for another 15 years.
Voters are also being asked to fund the repair of several bridges, currently in various stages of disrepair, at an estimated cost of about $2.5 million. The spans include the Pinedale Avenue and Fryeville bridges, as well as the pedestrian bridge that spans the Millers River at Crescent Street.
Athol Public Works Director Dick Kilhart told the Athol Daily News that the Pinedale Avenue Bridge, owned jointly by the towns of Athol and Orange, underwent state inspection about 18 months ago. MassDOT (state Department of Transportation) subsequently reduced the weight limit on the bridge, which has holes in the deck now covered by steel plates.
“There’s probably a 4-foot hole — a couple of different holes — right through the deck, so you can look through and see the Tully River right below. They had us plate it, but once you start limiting the weight, the bridge is close to seeing its end. They’ve reduced it to three tons.
“What is three tons? That’s 6,000 pounds. So, even a small pickup with a trailer can’t go over that, legally. You can’t go over it with a fire truck, can’t go over it with the ambulance. So, emergency vehicles have to go all the way around, which would be back up on Silver Lake if they were supporting Orange in any way, and vice versa.”
Kilhart said the towns of Athol and Orange hired and paid for Bayside Engineering, which did the design work on Athol’s Exchange Street Bridge, to come up with engineering and design plans for upgrading the Pinedale Avenue Bridge.
“This bridge is basically set to go to bid once the funding — if the funding — gets approved,” said Kilhart. “The fully designed package is just under $800,000 for Athol’s portion, and Orange would have a similar portion. The town line goes right down the middle of the Tully River, and each town owns half the bridge. So, the bridge is just under a million dollars for each community.”
Kilhart said the Pinedale project amounts to nearly a complete reconstruction.
The DPW chief said work is also slated for the Fryeville/Logan Avenue Bridge.
“That one hasn’t been reduced in weight — yet,” he said. “But it’s on the cusp of being downgraded as well, for weight limitations at some point. We don’t know exactly when that will be. Those bridges get put on a list and as they have a chance (the state) gets out there and inspects them.”
He said the cost of this second bridge project is about the same as for the Pinedale Avenue Bridge.
“Obviously, you would not be able to do those two bridges at the same time,” said Kilhart, “because people wouldn’t be able to get around. What you would do is, Pinedale would be first and that would probably be completely shut down — just like we did the Crescent Street Bridge.
“If you’re allowed to completely shut it down — if you can get right at it and you allow them to work on weekends and work longer days — it can get done relatively quickly. One would be shut down and completely rebuilt and restored, and then they would move forward to the next one.”
The final piece to the bridge-related debt exclusion addresses repair of the sluiceway beneath the Crescent Street Bridge.
“It’s not a complete bridge rebuild,” Kilhart explained. “There’s what they call ‘the Secret Bridge,’ which lies just north of the Crescent Street Bridge by Starrett’s. When they divert water through their turbine, there’s a channel that goes underneath there. Starrett’s calls it their sluiceway. This is a piece that goes underneath the sidewalk and spans the sluiceway and the road.
“The piece in the road is in pretty good shape. But the piece under the sidewalk, where the two drainage structures are — other than pedestrian traffic walking over them, if a car goes up on the banking, goes up on the sidewalk, or a delivery truck — it would probably go right down through there. The steel ‘stringer’ in there is paper-thin.”
The work, said Kilhart, would not necessitate a complete road closure. Preliminary engineering, he said, puts the cost of the work at “somewhere around $200,000.”
Kilhart cautioned that the fluctuating cost of steel could have some impact on estimated cost projections.
Greg Vine can be reached at gvineadn@gmail.com