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.
Work will create reservoir to hold billions of gallons of stormwater, sewer water overflow
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
Last blast at Thornton Quarry - YouTube
www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOKqdE_wLFkSep 23, 2013 - Uploaded by Chicago TribuneAfter a couple of false starts, Metropolitan Water Reclamation District president Kathleen Therse Maeny and ...
Thornton Quarry - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thornton_QuarryThornton Quarry is one of the largest aggregate quarries in the world, located in Thornton, Illinois just south of Chicago. Work at the quarry began in 1924 by ...Images for thornton quarry
- Report imagesBlast at Thornton Quarry propels Deep Tunnel project - Chicago ...
articles.chicagotribune.com › Featured Articles › Lake MichiganSep 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 ...Officials witness 'last blast' at Thornton Quarry - The Times
www.nwitimes.com/.../thornton/...thornton-quarry/article_7903a332-036...Sep 23, 2013 - THORNTON | A portion of the Thornton Quarry that has provided tons of limestone that was used to build structures and infrastructure across ...Big Blast At Thornton Quarry To Help Relieve Flooding Problems ...
chicago.cbslocal.com/.../big-blast-at-thornton-quarry-to-help-relieve-flo...Sep 23, 2013 - The "last blast" on Monday at the Thornton Quarry, along I-80, was the first step toward using the big hole to help relieve flooding on the South ...Quarry Tour - Village Of Thornton
www.thornton60476.com/index.asp?Type=B_BASIC&SEC...Reservations are now being accepted for the next availableQuarry Tour for June of 2016. For reservations, send form to:Quarry Tour P.O. Box 34. Thornton, IL ...Thornton Quarry operations to yield to stormwater reservoir ...
southtownstar.suntimes.com/news/22749546.../blast-from-the-past.htmlSep 23, 2013 - There were muffled blasts that sounded like distant fireworks, then roughly 38000 tons of limestone, more than 300 million years old, cascaded ...Hanson Aggregates-Thornton Quarry Illinois
www.indmaa.org/.../Hanson-AggregatesThornton-Quarry-Illinois-181Hanson Aggregates-Thornton Quarry Illinois | 322 South Williams Street, Thornton, IL, 60476 |Video: Deep Tunnel Construction Continues With Thornton Quarry ...
chicagoist.com/2013/.../video_deep_tunnel_construction_cont.p...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 ...Last blast in Thornton Quarry connects to Deep Tunnel ...
abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local&id=9259100Sep 23, 2013 - One final blast rocked the floor of the Thornton Quarry in the South suburbs.
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- Report imagesBlast at Thornton Quarry propels Deep Tunnel project - Chicago ...
articles.chicagotribune.com › Featured Articles › Lake MichiganSep 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 ...
articles.chicagotribune.com › Featured Articles › Water DamageJun 12, 2013 - Heavy rains in April quickly swampedChicago's underground labyrinth of sewers, forcing a stomach-churning surge of waste and runoff back ... Deep Tunnel - Encyclopedia of Chicago
www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/367.htmlThe $4 billion Tunnel and Reservoir Plan (TARP), better known as “The Deep Tunnel,” is the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago's ...Tunnel and Reservoir Plan (TARP) - MWRDGC Portal
www.mwrd.org/irj/portal/anonymous/tarpDespite the reversal of the Chicago River, and even the construction of the ... The total system consists of 109.4 miles of deep, large diameter, rock tunnels ...Did Chicago's Deep Tunnel help during Thursday's flood? | WGN-TV
wgntv.com/2013/.../did-chicagos-deep-tunnel-help-during-thursdays-flo...Apr 18, 2013 - Where was Chicago's Deep Tunnel in all this during Thursday's flooding? It's a question that arises whenever serious flooding happens in our ...Deep Tunnel project nears completion on South Side | abc7chicago ...
abclocal.go.com/wls/story?id=9253533Sep 23, 2013 - A large explosion planned at the Thornton Quarry next Monday will go a long way to helping ease flooding on the South Side of Chicago and in ...Deep Inside Chicago's Deep Tunnel | Chicago magazine ...
www.chicagomag.com/Chicago.../Deep-Inside-Chicagos-Deep-Tunnel/Dec 15, 2011 - The Feds and the state get impatient with Deep Tunnel, forcing the state into an agreement to get it done on time—by 2029. Here's how it's (sort ...Six tunnels hidden under Chicago's Loop - WBEZ
www.wbez.org/series/.../six-tunnels-hidden-under-chicago’s-loop-10779...Jun 20, 2013 - You ask your questions about Chicago, the region and the people who .... The Deep Tunnel is rarely referred to by its full name, the Tunnel and ...
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