Taking news writers and broadcasters 170 feet
beneath street level in Columbus, city officials showed off the initial 600
foot long section of a deep tunnel designed to end the dumping of untreated mixed
sanitary and storm sewage into the Scioto River. When completed, the 4.5 mile
long tunnel, 20 feet in diameter, will hold 55 million gallons of combined
sewage runoff for treatment once storm water subsides.
Construction of the vertical shafts connecting the
deep tunnel to the city sewer system started at the Jackson Pike Waste Water
Treatment Plant in 2010. This spring workers started work on the first 600 feet
of the deep tunnel itself, to make room for underground assembly of a 540 foot
long drilling machine to complete the remaining 23,160 feet of the deep tunnel.
The giant drill is expected to move forward 68 feet per day, with completion of
the project in June, 2015.
