By Lynda Myer
Following 18 months, currently 3 mini tunnel boring machines (TBMs), 7 launch and retrieval sites, 24 maintenance holes and around 3km of sewer lines – the Yarra East Main Sewer (YEMS) in Bulleen is operational.
Locating beneath the Bulleen Road, YEMS is a major sewer that services thousands of homes and businesses in Melbourne’s northeast.
While transferring the sewer out of the way of North East Link is the largest and most complex job for the project so far, in order to construct the new sewer, 3 mini TBMs tunneled up to 20m under Bulleen, excavating 1.8km of the new sewer to the east of Bulleen Road. An extra 1.5km of smaller sewers that branch off the new YEMS was dug using a laser-guided drill.
One of the advantages of tunneling the sewer below ground was decreasing impacts and disruptions to the community at the surface.
With the new sewer now up and running, work has commenced to disconnect the old sewer under Bulleen Road and reinstate work areas, ahead of construction on the North East Link Tunnels later this year.
