The Clearwater tunnelling project is an ongoing construction set to replace wastewater pipes under South Bay and Harbor Area in Los Angeles. The underground, 7-mile-long journey, began between July and August 0f 2021 after the various parts of the machine are assembled, will take around four years to complete. Factoring in a two-year scheme at the end to construct a smaller shaft at Royal Palms Beach in San Pedro that will link to the existing outfalls to the ocean, according to current projections, the whole project won’t be finished until 2027.
The Boring Machine Technology.
Designed and made in Germany for the specific task, the giant earth boring machine will move underground under the streets of Harbour and South Bay Area. The target is to replace two aging wastewater pipes which were installed in 1937 and 1958 with a 18-foot wide pipe sufficient for the current much larger water flow.
The huge machine digs tunnel will be between 50 and 460 feet below the surface, depending on the underneath topography.
The tunnel will be 30 feet below the surface at the beach. A number of residents were bothered about the potential effects of the tunneling work, boring machine technology isn’t new and is being used worldwide. It is currently being used for extensions to L.A. Metro’s subway system in Los Angeles and tunnelling working for the HS2 in London. A number of in-depth environmental and safety studies considering the safety and other impacts were implemented as part of the regulatory requirements leading up to the scheme.
Read also: Silvertown Tunnel Project Timeline.
The front part went down the 100-foot-deep shaft first, with the smaller cutting head following. Workers were in an near shaft below guiding the assembling process. “It will take around three and a half to four years of tunneling between Carson and Royal Palms Beach,” stated Clearwater spokesman Glenn Acosta. “ Before that, the work on the beach will start to construct a smaller shaft” to link to the existing outfalls. Three of the four current ocean outfalls are in good working condition. The planned work at the beach, for 2024-25, should take around two years with the parking and beach remaining open, Acosta said. Working days will be Mondays through Fridays on normal working hours and “once all the work is done, it will be restored to the way it was,” He added. The Clearwater tunnelling project’s need was first documented as planning started. Currently, 73 of Los Angeles County’s 88 cities rely on the current antiquated pipelines to take more over 260 million gallons of treated wastewater from the plant to the ocean.
Timeline.
2006.
The Clearwater water tunnelling project planning began.
2012
The formal name for the Clearwater Project was approved in 2012 by the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts and engineers involved in the work described the scheme as sophisticated, intricate and precise. Before the formal name approval studies were done to see if they could effectively remove salt from that water.
2021
After more than a decade of community meetings, planning and more planning, an ambitious $630 million task to replace two aging underground wastewater pipes was launched officially on Monday, June 21, as a two-story-high electric tunneling machine were lowered underground at the sanitation plant at the border of Carson and Wilmington.
