Tunnel will keep overflow sewage out

LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WLFI) - It's taken two years to complete a massive underground tunnel, meant to help eliminate combined sewage overflow into the Wabash River.

The city of Lafayette is one of many midwestern cites required to make changes and stop raw sewage from going into bodies of water. Lafayette Mayor Tony Roswarski said since the tunnel opened in April, 38 million gallons of raw sewage have been stopped from flowing into the Wabash.

"From the standpoint of meeting that agreement requirement, this is a huge step. It gets us about 30% towards achieving that goal, which is we have to achieve over an 18 year period. So getting this project done certainly is very important for that," said Roswarski. 

Water pollution control superintendent Brad Talley said building a tunnel was a challenge.

"We ran into varying soil conditions at times, which made it a challenge for the machines,"said Talley.

The project required specialized equipment. President of Triad Engineering Cliff Kassouf, who worked on the tunnel, said the technology has never been used in Lafayette.

"This was specialized because of the type of ground conditions that we had, something that we designed with the manufacture specific to this project," said Kassouf. 

Talley said this is part of a 20 year plan to improve Lafayette's environmental quality.

"We will start the next project in the next one to two years. It will be a parallel intercepter, basically a parallel sewer that runs along from the fairground location to the wastewater treatment plant," said Talley.