By rosebell
The contract for the Cemetery Brook Drain Tunnel project has been granted to Methuen Obayashi Joint Venture by New Hampshire’s City of Manchester.
Transforming the city’s drainage system, decreasing combined sewer overflows, as well as improving the water quality of the Merrimack River, a critical natural resource which supplies drinking water for 600,000 residents, are the purposes of this project.
Being constructed 24m beneath the ground, this 3.6km-long bored tunnel will have an internal diameter of 3.65m.
The location of commencing construction is due to be the banks of the Merrimack River where the structures will include a temporary excavation support system, a tunnel launch trench and a headwall.
With the aim of providing the construction team access to the tunnel and, once the project is completed, aeven drop shafts and corresponding structures will be built along the tunnel alignment, whereas they are going to convey water into the tunnel. The DS-7 shaft will be used to retrieve the TBM.
The shafts will be excavated in in rock either by mechanised excavation or controlled blasting.
Following completing the tunnel and drop shafts, the tunnel inlet at Mammoth Rd, and the permanent outfall structure on the Merrimack River will be constructed.
As the largest public works project ever undertaken in the City of Manchester, this project’s value is US$360m and undertaken in collaboration with the US Environmental Protection Agency and the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services. The scheduled date for project’s completion is 2028.
