The aerial photo of the Thornton Quarry above on both sides of I-80 and east of Halsted. The quarry is one of the largest in the world and now becomes the largest flood control reservoir in the world as part of the massive Deep Tunnel project to reduce Chicago area flooding and water pollution. Part of the project that helped minimize basement flooding back in the old sod.
Blast at Thornton Quarry propels Deep Tunnel project
Work will create reservoir to hold billions of gallons of stormwater, sewer water overflow
September 24, 2013|By Andy Grimm, Chicago Tribune reporter
A small crowd gathered Monday at the lip of the mammoth Thornton Quarry, all eyes fixed on an outcropping of dolomite nearly 300 feet below the shoulder of the westbound lanes of Interstate 80.
A ripple shot through the two-story rock formation, and it collapsed amid a small, dusty landslide. And so construction of the largest portion to date of the decades-in-the-making Deep Tunnel floodwater control system began with a bang.
"That was fun," said Metropolitan Water Reclamation District President Kathleen Therese Meany, smiling broadly as she turned away from the detonator box.
When it goes online in 2015, the Thornton Composite Reservoir will hold 7.9 billion gallons of stormwater and sanitary sewer water from more than a dozen south suburban towns.
The Thornton project will create the largest reservoir of its kind in the world and is the latest engineering marvel in nearly two centuries of trying to keep Chicagoland from reverting to its swampland roots while not turning Lake Michigan into a cesspool.
The blast also signals a shift in the landmark, 1,000-acre quarry that has been mined since 1837 and once was part of the industrial empire of Chicago's Crown family. The section of the quarry north of I-80 eventually will connect via a 30-foot-diameter tunnel to an 8-mile southerly section of the cavernous Deep Tunnel project. Mining will continue for decades in the larger portion of the quarry south of I-80, officials said.
By 2017, Thornton will lose the title of world's largest reservoir to another Deep Tunnel project, a 10 billion-gallon reservoir in McCook. All told, more than $35 billion has been spent on Deep Tunnel projects since work began in the late 1970s, and work won't be finished until at least 2029.
"This is one of the most visionary projects that has ever been done," said water district Executive Director David St. Pierre. He paraphrased legendary urban planner Daniel Burnham while commenting on the skepticism that has come with the Deep Tunnel system's high expectations and generational timeline.
"We live in a city of no small plans. This is certainly no small plan."
The 30-story-deep reservoir will fill like a regional bathtub during massive storms that threaten to overwhelm local sewer systems, a problem that has grown worse with more frequent and intense downpours in recent years and as development has replaced open, absorbent land with rooftops and pavement.
The Deep Tunnel project, a cavernous underground network of tunnels connecting about 350 square miles of storm sewers across the county, was first conceived in the 1960s. As it did back then, much of the region's stormwater travels through combined sewer systems that collect rainwater as well as wastewater for homes and industrial sites.
When those sewers become overfilled, they back up into basements or have to be emptied into streams and channels that feed into Lake Michigan, with a single storm sometimes forcing billions of gallons of bacteria-laden untreated sewage into the source of much of the region's drinking water.
Concerns about sewage entering Lake Michigan, and massive engineering feats intended to thwart such pollution, date back to the earliest days of Chicago history. Efforts to divert the flow of the Chicago River from the lake began as early as the mid-19th century, around the time the first quarries opened in Thornton.
Click to read the full article in the Chicago Tribune
A ripple shot through the two-story rock formation, and it collapsed amid a small, dusty landslide. And so construction of the largest portion to date of the decades-in-the-making Deep Tunnel floodwater control system began with a bang.
"That was fun," said Metropolitan Water Reclamation District President Kathleen Therese Meany, smiling broadly as she turned away from the detonator box.
When it goes online in 2015, the Thornton Composite Reservoir will hold 7.9 billion gallons of stormwater and sanitary sewer water from more than a dozen south suburban towns.
The Thornton project will create the largest reservoir of its kind in the world and is the latest engineering marvel in nearly two centuries of trying to keep Chicagoland from reverting to its swampland roots while not turning Lake Michigan into a cesspool.
The blast also signals a shift in the landmark, 1,000-acre quarry that has been mined since 1837 and once was part of the industrial empire of Chicago's Crown family. The section of the quarry north of I-80 eventually will connect via a 30-foot-diameter tunnel to an 8-mile southerly section of the cavernous Deep Tunnel project. Mining will continue for decades in the larger portion of the quarry south of I-80, officials said.
By 2017, Thornton will lose the title of world's largest reservoir to another Deep Tunnel project, a 10 billion-gallon reservoir in McCook. All told, more than $35 billion has been spent on Deep Tunnel projects since work began in the late 1970s, and work won't be finished until at least 2029.
"This is one of the most visionary projects that has ever been done," said water district Executive Director David St. Pierre. He paraphrased legendary urban planner Daniel Burnham while commenting on the skepticism that has come with the Deep Tunnel system's high expectations and generational timeline.
"We live in a city of no small plans. This is certainly no small plan."
The 30-story-deep reservoir will fill like a regional bathtub during massive storms that threaten to overwhelm local sewer systems, a problem that has grown worse with more frequent and intense downpours in recent years and as development has replaced open, absorbent land with rooftops and pavement.
The Deep Tunnel project, a cavernous underground network of tunnels connecting about 350 square miles of storm sewers across the county, was first conceived in the 1960s. As it did back then, much of the region's stormwater travels through combined sewer systems that collect rainwater as well as wastewater for homes and industrial sites.
When those sewers become overfilled, they back up into basements or have to be emptied into streams and channels that feed into Lake Michigan, with a single storm sometimes forcing billions of gallons of bacteria-laden untreated sewage into the source of much of the region's drinking water.
Concerns about sewage entering Lake Michigan, and massive engineering feats intended to thwart such pollution, date back to the earliest days of Chicago history. Efforts to divert the flow of the Chicago River from the lake began as early as the mid-19th century, around the time the first quarries opened in Thornton.
Click to read the full article in the Chicago Tribune
Images for thornton quarry
- Report imagesBlast at Thornton Quarry propels Deep Tunnel project - Chicago ...
Sep 24, 2013 - A small crowd gathered Monday at the lip of the mammoth Thornton Quarry, all eyes fixed on an outcropping of dolomite nearly 300 feet below ...Video: Deep Tunnel Construction Continues With Thornton Quarry ...
Sep 26, 2013 - Earlier this week work began on transforming an old limestone quarry in Thornton into the largest reservoir in the world by the time it's ...
__________________________________________________________
About 5,650,000 results (0.41 seconds)
Search Results
Images for deep tunnel chicago
- Report imagesBlast at Thornton Quarry propels Deep Tunnel project - Chicago ...
Sep 24, 2013 - A small crowd gathered Monday at the lip of the mammoth Thornton Quarry, all eyes fixed on an outcropping of dolomite nearly 300 feet below ...Deep Tunnel, shallow thinking? - Featured Articles From The ...
Jun 12, 2013 - Heavy rains in April quickly swampedChicago's underground labyrinth of sewers, forcing a stomach-churning surge of waste and runoff back ...
No comments:
Post a Comment