CHESTERFIELD, Mo. --- (November 12, 2003) --- The Indiana Department of Transportation today awarded Affholder, Inc. a $6.95 million contract to construct a new eight-foot-diameter sewer tunnel in Evansville, Ind.
The new 4,800-foot-long tunnel will run 40 feet beneath Highway 66, a four-lane state highway that passes through Evansville. A 96-inch-diameter carrier pipe to be installed in the tunnel will eventually transport sewage from an adjacent pump station to a yet-to-be-constructed extension to the city's sewer system.
It will take two 15-person Affholder work crews and a 144-inch-diameter tunnel boring machine about seven months to bore the tunnel through the soft clay earth, according to Ross Webb, project manager for Affholder. The entire project, which includes two access shafts, is scheduled for completion by July 2004.
"Given the depth of the line and its location beneath a busy four-lane highway, it would have been very disruptive to install this sewer pipe using conventional excavation methods," says Webb. "Boring a tunnel will create much less disruption to the road traffic."
Affholder begins assembling equipment at the work site this week, according to Webb. Before digging the shaft that the tunnel boring machine will be lowered into, workers will first widen the road to accommodate the work. Affholder crews are then expected to work two shifts a day, boring approximately 100 feet of earth each day.
Affholder, Inc., a subsidiary of Insituform Technologies, Inc., uses tunneling methods to perform trenchless installations of new pipelines throughout North America. Additional information about the company can be obtained at www.insituform.com.