By Ashley Karen
Domenica, the micro-Tunnel Boring Machine (mTBM), has broken through for the last time to finish link sewer C, the first of two smaller tunnels that link to Ghella‘s main Central Interceptor wastewater tunnel.
The 2.6m diameter cutter head – that’s the sharp bit that drills through the ground – chewed via the concrete wall of a 13m deep shaft at Miranda Street in Avondale just before 10 am last Friday.
Domenica was launched in June 2021 and has finished four shaft breakthroughs along the 3.2km tunnel route, running from May Rd in Mt Roskill to Avondale. Now she will be refurbished before beginning work on link sewer B in late July.
Since the 1870s, the name Domenica has been an essential part of Ghella’s history with the wives of forefather Domenico and his son, company founder Adolfo, both named Domenica.
These women were essential to the Ghella family as hard-working mothers and wives backing the family business behind the scenes. The women understood the necessity for exploration and encouraged their husbands to travel and discover in the hope of learning about new foreign lands.
Today, some five generations later, the Ghella family of explorers and tunnellers have built and delivered significant infrastructure projects across the world.
This project delivers a supersized wastewater tunnel that will significantly decrease wastewater overflows into central Auckland’s waterways. In addition, the improved capacity in the wastewater network supplies for future growth and development on the Auckland Isthmus for the next 50 years and beyond.
