Bloomsburg Public Works

                                              The Men behind the Town 

 “It’s not a not an easy job but it

pays the bills and keeps food on

the table,” says haggard veteran John Fritz, a thirty-year member of the Bloomsburg Public

Works Department. “Without us the town

would fall apart,” remarked John.
The Public works street department is in charge of maintaining the streets and everything involved with the town.

The Public Works department is located on Catherine street in

Bloomsburg. The long tan building

is stuffed to the brim with heavy


equipment of all kinds. All are
painted a shade of safety yellow. Many showing faded paint and rust with the exception of one shiny new red dump truck. Each truck gets equipped with a heavy steel plow and massive salt spreader getting ready for the impending snow. The wine of an air gun rips through the silence of the small break room as mechanic Larry Brown changes tires on an old beat up pickup truck.

  Although winter is full of plowing and salting supervisor John Barton claims that summer season is the busiest

time for the department. Summers 

consist of day after day of pipe

maintenance, grass cutting, and

paving streets. "The warm summer

temperatures provide us the only time to dig up and repair water and

sewer pipes without the headache of

digging through frost," explained Barton.

The job of cutting grass in and around town is usually given to three-part time teenagers who are willing to brave the heat.

  Disaster relief also falls under the

wide umbrella of what Public works is responsible for. Floods like what happened in 2011 which flooded most of the town leave damage that takes months to repair. Whole weeks are spent collecting and hauling tons of flood debris and thick mud to landfills and dump sites. "It's tough to see things people have worked for their whole lives destroyed by water," says town employee Dave Eyer. Eyer has seen his fair share of floods over his thirty-six-year career. A look of distain is obvious when he proclaims, "those are the days when it's tough to show up to work."

  Through the days in the blistering heat and freezing cold Public works is always there. The work isn't easy and there is very little appreciation from anyone. But if you ask the guys who work there they will all tell you they don't need the attention they are perfectly fine being the men behind the town.