By Rose Bell
Following that the tunnel boring machine broke into the final project shaft 100 feet underground, the Shoreline Storage Tunnel, which is the fifth of seven such storage tunnels of Project Clean Lake, on May 30th successfully completed more than two-and-a-half miles of mining activity.
The time duration that this tunnel boring machine (TBM) completed totally 14,000 feet drive was 603 days, whereas the tunnel diameter is 23-foot diameter and the storage tunnel is finally due to decrease Lake Erie pollution by 350 million gallons a year when finished in 2025.
The Project Clean Lake with $3 billion value is the 25-year program to significantly reduce the amount of combined sewage entering local waterways through a blend of tunnel construction, treatment plant expansion, as well as green infrastructure; and the Shoreline Storage Tunnel landmark was the latest advancement of this program.
As the first three tunnels, the Doan Valley Tunnel (2021), the Euclid Creek Tunnel (2018) and Dugway Storage Tunnel (2020), currently are complete and online.
Additionally, the Westerly Storage Tunnel is complete, and ready to go online once its dewatering pump station is activated later this year, while the Southerly Tunnel construction is progressing right now in Cuyahoga Heights and the Slavic Village neighborhood of Cleveland.
As the last of the seven, the Big Creek Tunnel’s design is undergoing and its construction is slated to be started in 2026.
The scheduled date for completion of Project Clean Lake is 2036, whereas 73 of Project Clean Lake’s 79 projects are complete or underway, and Lake Erie is almost 2 billion gallons a year cleaner because of them.
