Special Pothole Killer is raking it in

Where Joseph Borucki sees destruction and expense, Scott Kleiger sees liquid gold.

Borucki, a Mount Laurel lawyer, just spent $500 to fix a wheel bearing damaged by a pothole. For him, every drive has become a slalom run around road craters.

Kleiger, a Harleysville entrepreneur, operates a fleet of specially equipped trucks that fill potholes in seconds, and this is his high season.

"It's like our birthday!" Kleiger exulted last week, watching one of his Pothole Killer trucks back up traffic for a half-mile on U.S. 1 in Bucks County as it squirted a warm mix of asphalt and cement into hole after hole. "It's a very good time!"

So good for Kleiger - and so bad for everyone else - because this winter's heavy snowfalls, long spells of low temperatures, and intermittent thaws have produced a bumper crop of tire-eating, axle-breaking, wheel-bending crevices.

"We have been filling potholes since their premature outbreak in early January, whenever crews have not been responding to the steady string of snow and ice storms," said Lester Toaso, district executive of the Southeastern Region of the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation. "Unfortunately, the harsh winter season undid many of these patches, but we will work aggressively to make permanent repairs."

PennDot has $2.5 million for the local region's potholes, and it's going fast: Since Dec. 1, the local district has used 1,506 tons of patching material in the five Southeastern Pennsylvania counties, 50 percent more than during the same period last year.

In Philadelphia, the city has filled 3,995 potholes since Jan. 1, compared with 1,540 during the same period last year, Mayor Nutter said. Now, 20 crews are deployed by the Streets Department, filling about 700 holes a day.

In New Jersey, "we've seen potholes emerge very early in our pothole season," said Joseph Dee, spokesman of the state's Department of Transportation. In January, the department's crews filled 25,600 potholes, compared with 12,200 in the same month in 2013, he said.

Camden County public works crews have used about 900 tons of patching material since Jan. 1, and County Freeholder Ian Leonard said they'd have used more if the weather had not been so cold and snowy.

"It's not a lack of material or manpower," Leonard said. "It's a lack of decent weather."

Borucki, the Mount Laurel lawyer, said he couldn't identify which pothole was the culprit that did in his wheel.

"I've hit so many potholes that I can't begin to tell you," he said. "I hit them where I-295 and Route 42 come together, all over Route 70, on 130."

He lost his car for a day and a half while it was being repaired last week, and now that he's back on the road, he finds that avoiding potholes can be as dangerous as hitting them.

"You swerve to avoid them, and that can put you in someone else's lane," he said.

To try to fix the hazards, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and other states are hiring Kleiger's company or renting his trucks to patch holes faster than traditional crews can do the job.

Equipped with a high-pressure nozzle that makes it look like a giant dental tool, a Pothole Killer truck can clean, fill, and top off a pothole in about 90 seconds, without the operator's ever leaving the cab.

"Fill 'em and bill 'em," chortled Kleiger, as he watched operator Alvin Davis expertly manipulate a joystick to spray a 150-degree mix of asphalt and cement into a parade of potholes on U.S. 1 near Trevose.

Kleiger, 50, is the founder and chief operating officer of Patch Management Inc., in Fairless Hills. He patented the rolling pothole filler and created a special patching mix that he says can last nine years.

Potholes are such good business that his company now owns 40 trucks, employs 45 people, and collects about $10 million a year, he said.

PennDot has contracts with Kleiger's company, as well as Pocono Spray Patching Co. of Gouldsboro, for $464,920 this year. So far, the state has spent about $123,000 of that amount.

Kleiger, a Tennessee native, said: "I had to come to the snow belt to make any money. . . . They don't take potholes as seriously down south."

215-854-4587 @nussbaumpaul