TORONTO — The City of Toronto has officially kicked off its Coxwell Bypass Tunnel project.
Mayor John Tory and Councillor Jennifer McKelvie, vice-chair of the Infrastructure and Environment Committee, officially marked the beginning of tunnel boring on Dec. 14. Boring will be undertaken using a tunnel boring machine (TBM) nicknamed Donnie.
The project is the first stage of the Don River and Central Waterfront Wet Weather Flow System, one of five connected projects to improve water quality in the Lower Don River, Taylor-Massey Creek and along Toronto’s Inner Harbour, stated a release.
The City is spending more than $3 billion to prevent combined sewer overflows into such waterways as the Don River and Lake Ontario.
The TBM will dig a 6.3-metre-diameter, 10.5-kilometre-long tunnel approximately 50 metres deep, parallel to the Don River.
The tunnel will capture, store and transport combined sewer overflows, a mix of rainwater and sewage, for treatment at the Ashbridges Bay Treatment Plant.
The TBM is 115 metres in length and weighs nearly 1,000 tonnes. The machine was lowered into a 50-metre-deep and 20-metre-diameter shaft at the Ashbridges Bay Treatment Plant in sections and then assembled.
Once testing is complete in the new year, the TBM will work its way west along Lake Shore Boulevard East to Don Roadway, north up the Don River valley to the North Toronto Treatment Plant and then east to the Coxwell Ravine Park shaft site where the tunnel ends.
The machine can bore at least 20 metres of tunnel per day. The Coxwell Bypass Tunnel is expected to be completed in 2024.
“Through this tunnel we can capture and store rain and wastewater and transport it for treatment and disinfection so clean water is released into the lake. This project is of great importance to our city and the future of our waterways. I am determined to secure the help of the federal and provincial governments to speed up this work so we can see the benefits of this project a decade earlier,” said Tory in the statement.
Good great work