One major road project lies ahead this year for the Freeport Public Works Department, and a couple of big jobs from last year need to be finished up.

That will leave time for maintenance work that’s been piling up, and Earl Gibson, department superintendent, is anxious to get at it.

“One of the things we’re trying to get a handle on is maintenance,” Gibson said last Thursday, while his crew was doing ditching work on Desert Road, not far from the public works headquarters on Hunter Road. “We’ve been in construction mode for so long. We need to remove winter sand from the roads and clean ditches. The No. 1 problem with a road is to get the water away from it. We need to get caught up on maintenance big-time. Sand has been building up for years. It holds water.”

The public works crew will use J.D. Crooker of Topsham to pave the big surfaces started last year, on Wardtown Road and Litchfield Road, in mid-May. The Freeport crew left a base coat on those roads last year. The work should close Wardtown Road to one lane for perhaps three days, and Litchfield Road for only a day, Gibson said.

Quick paving jobs will be done on Estes Drive, Lady Slipper Lane, Evergreen Road, Merrill Road and Murch Road in August.

That leaves the major project – reconstruction of streets in South Freeport – for later. Gibson said he wants to wait until the summer traffic is gone to start on Main Street and Park Street in September. Public works will start on Middle Street, which is a side street in South Freeport, with drainage work in June.

“Capital projects like that are a total reconstruction, and they’re part of the capital budget,” Gibson said. “The rest is in my budget.”

The Freeport Town Council has approved a 2017 capital budget that includes the South Freeport roads, but a final budget vote won’t come until June. The money becomes available in July, Gibson said.

Gisbon said that the two big trees cut on Desert Road last Thursday were blocking water flow to culverts, and needed to make way for ditching work. Crew member Jay Rumery used his excavator to pull out stumps and place them on a waiting flatbed truck, along with the huge pine logs. The stumps and the logs then were transported to South Portland, to be ground up.

“The (Department of Environmental Protection) won’t allow stumps to be buried,” Gibson said. “The chemicals break down and create turpentine, what goes into the water table. We don’t want turpentine in the water table. We’re also removing and replacing decayed metal pipe with plastic pipe or high-definition pipe.”

Jay Rumery of the Freeport Public Works Department uses an excavator to pull out the roots from a big pine tree that the crew felled last Thursday morning on Desert Road.

Jay Rumery of the Freeport Public Works Department uses an excavator to pull out the roots from a big pine tree that the crew felled last Thursday morning on Desert Road.

Jay Rumery of the Freeport Public Works Department uses an excavator to pull out the roots from a big pine tree that the crew felled last Thursday morning on Desert Road.

Huge pin logs, stumps and roots that were cut and pulled by the Freeport Public Works Department last Thursday on Desert Road sit on a flatbed trailer outside department headquarters on Hunter Road. Crew member Connie Carpenter took the load to South Freeport, where it was ground up.

A closer look

During the summer, the Freeport Public Works Department offers residents free ditching material delivered to their property. Residents must sign a release form on the department website, www.freeportmaine.com/department.detail.php?page_id=93. The ditching material may contain some roadside debris and rocks, brush and roots. Public works will deliver the material, but not smooth it out.

For more information, call 865-4461.