WASHINGTON – She’s a big, football-field-and-a-half long dirt-eating machine and now she’s coming to surface.
Lady Bird has spent the past two years digging a four-mile-long tunnel underneath the Anacostia and Potomac Rivers, from the Blue Plains Advanced Wastewater Treatment Center north to DC Water’s Main Pumping Station in Southeast D.C.
It’s all part of the DC Water’s Clean Rivers Project, which aims to reduce pollution in the Anacostia River by 98 percent.
A crane pulled out the 26-foot wide cutterhead from the newly dug tunnel, just down the street from Nationals Park Thursday morning. Crews will continue pulling out segments of the digging machine until is all removed.
“This is a terrific milestone for DC Water’s Clean Rivers Project,” said DC Water CEO and General Manager George S. Hawkins. “We are fortunate that the tunneling went so smoothly, finishing on time and on budget.”
Lady Bird dug and constructed a roughly 23-foot diameter tunnel about 100 feet beneath the Anacostia River. It will carry wastewater down to the Blue Plans Advanced Wastewater Treatment Center to be treated and then returned to the Potomac River.
The tunnel is both wider and deeper than the Metro tunnels.
