I worked in the deep tunnel back in the early 90's, it was 386' below ground where I worked. We set the record on a 32' round dig by going 100 feet, got a coin as a commeration. Also worked on 15' tunnel and drilling and packing leaks. Was there the night the hoist, which ran the manlift/elevator, caught fire, after that night we were lowered and raised by crane. You've never seen darkness like when the power would go down, could see absolutly nothing. Was very, very hard work!
I was on that job too. IEL at Miller Meadow. I ran the 32' mole and the 15'er west under Roosevelt Rd to 25th. I operated the crane that took the TBM out of the hole at P site, about a half mile north of Kiddie Land then the 9260 American at the main shaft until the end of the job.
Thank you for this. I had seen the “quarry” on a drive through the area and didn’t think any more about it other than “how strange to have that on either side of a highway.”
My parents grew up out by the Thornton quarry, iirc the north section (which is now the reservoir) was excavated after the highway went through the area
Former Chicagoan here. I knew about the deep tunnel project and the quarries on the south side, but I never knew they were connected! My hats off to you teaching me something about Chicago. I also worked across from the Elk Grove village reservoir by ORD and never knew it was attached to the deep tunnel.👏🏻
It’s because there are dozens of similar constructions being done all over the country. They are increasing underground water storage for cities all over the world and don’t want people thinking about why.
NY city installed a new water pipe to feed the city so they could do repairs on the original one. That was some feat. Their water system is said to be the best.
They don’t want people to know where their money is really going. Keeping it secret prevents people from asking questions. Notice that not even the workers themselves say much at all or go to the press.
It’s because it is very controversial and they’re trying to keep it on the down low because most of the people it will be effecting have no idea what’s coming.
I drive over the Thornton Quarry daily to get to work. My mom used to tell us the Flintstones lived down there lol. The South Holland oasis is like a mile or two away.
I had a chance to visit this project in 1982. Was with a group of engineering students and we were able to ride a lift down one of the main construction drop Shafts. There was one of the TBMs waiting to be dismantled with only the cutting face visible. They were also in the process of lining the tunnel and there were concrete mixer trucks dropping concrete in chutes to special railroad cars to move the concrete down the tunnel. The tunnel was pretty well lit but it was foggy due to the 55 ground temperature and you couldn't see more than a few hundred feet down the tunnel. Was a bit surreal.
Most of the Engineering in the Near Interior was done out of Chicago from the 19th century well into the 20th. Fascinating school of infrastructure, Im sure there would be some thematic consistencies if studied etc
I've driven a semi truck over the Thornton reservoir more times than I can count. I never knew what it was, only that it was a LONG way down to the bottom! Also, its Chicago's combination sewers that kind of make this approach necessary. The green system would work well if it were only storm water. But with feces mixed in, it must be specially treated in a facility designed to do that.
You can live in Chicago your whole life and never know everything about it. It's a beautiful wonderful city with so much history and amazing feats of engineering
I worked as an inspector on the slurry wall through the upper till overburden soil at the 1st part of McCook back in the early 2000s. It wasn't a rock quarry then. It was a water treatment sludge (biosolids) drying facility for MWRD. The slurry wall was installed to control seepage from the adjacent canal and river during excavation down to the rock. The rock was then quarried to create the reservoir. IIRC, the official project name is the Chicago Underflow Plan (CUP).
I was a young kid and teenager that lived in the trailer parks next to this one in elk Grove, I remember ridding my bike in the trails that were there before any construction of the Quarry was there now I know what it became
@@leahcimthgirw3163 Didn’t kids sometimes go swimming in some of the quarries? I only hopped the fence at my local swimming pool on a hot summer night 😂
FYI the Thornton quarry that goes on both sides of 294/I 80 that multiple vehicles/ trucks pass over everyday is monstrous . I work for a paving company and on the north side is the old quarry now water reclamation for Deep tunnel which has the same conditions as the other quarry to the south. I all honesty they were at one time connected to each other via tunnels for gigantic earth moving vehicles Quarry trucks payloaders drills ect ect . But most importantly is that this quarry has the most pristine lime stone in the world. It’d dug up ground up and shipped all over the world via barge and rail cars. For some reason it’s consistency if fair more superior that most lime stone out there. It been test all over when used in making concrete it us superior for concrete mix of multiple substances for different building quality curbs, streets, buildings., foundations, sidewalks, driveways. Roadways, bridges and bridge support, precast concrete form/ walls you name it’s been used best one is Trump towers here in down town Chicago was multi types of concrete mix’s used to build the tower all steel and concrete. I’ve been in that quarry multiple times getting stone 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
I remember when deep tunnel made some headway in the mid-1990s and it was big news that people would talk about. 20 years alter everyone i mentioned deep tunnel to had forgotten what it was and thought I was crazy. I wrote a report on it in my class a few years ago and everyone was impressed that chicago built such a system.
Just a note- It’s not finished yet. I believe they have only about half of the DTP operational. It’s expected to take until 2030. There are still tunnels being dug and other infrastructure including the McCook expansion being constructed. They will have to rebuild some of the existing infrastructure due to its age. Some of it is already 50 years old so pumps and other equipment will need to be upgraded
@@unl987 You can never be finished because raw sewage overflows, good old Chicago turds floating down the river. When they should have just divided the sewage from the stormwater a neighborhood at a time.
Do you remember that movie with Tom Cruz and Morgan Friedman when Morgan was hiding, underground after a horrible war that destroyed America, in Chicago because the bedrock was solid.? I wonder what else they are building?
@mikeehuber have you ever actually been to Chicago? Have you experienced the absolute BEDLAM that any road construction project causes? Re-paving a city street causes disruptions for blocks in all directions. Now imagine tearing a street up completely to add storm water drainage. That's a project that moves very slowly, weeks at a time...
Geology saves Chicago. The Thornton quarry was dug out, and parts of the others were the results of a massive Silurian reef complex that developed in a shallow sea, 430 million years ago.
Atlanta did something similar almost 20 years ago. They dug out a large tunnel holding system to catch excess storm water to be processed at a later time.
I’ve been driving past that quarry (Thornton reservoir I think) about as long as I’ve been alive. Never knew it was used for this these days. Thanks for the video.
In upstate NY I lived in a city that had it's sewage dump directly into the rivers and this continued till the early 2000s when the federal government forced them to install new sewer lines and divert the discharge into the new sewage tunnels. The city had no money, and the streets had the asphalt cut and removed for installing the new pipes, and they couldn't pave the street, so huge sections down the streets had drops to dirt they backfilled the pipes with. It is amazing how few people know that we had raw sewage discharge and the CSOs still discharge raw sewage
@@ocsrc No environmentalist care, but could you imagine a corporation doing the same thing for the last 150 years? Look up what happens to a farmer who has an accidental one-time manure accident.
Despite all the rerouting, tunnels, sewer system etc - thousands of Chicago basements flood after heavy rain. It was such a “usual problem” that most homes in our area (northwest side) don’t finish the basement. We finally dealt with it by moving out of the city.
What an incredible site! Massive & deep quarries in an urban environment. It looks Unreal. I'm flabbergasted I had never heard of this before so thank your for introducing me to it!
Tunnel is not even “open” yet! What are you talking about? Homes in Chicago and Chicago area still flood because these “geniuses” are not able to complete this project in 50 years, and probably still not in another 50 years! If this was in Japan or China it would have been completed in 5 years!
I used to work right by where those houses were shown. Having just moved to Chicago I thought it was odd. Then I saw something on the History channel about the street raising and then it made sense.
I used to live in the suburbs and remember driving on a highway cutting across a quarry. I never read up on it though, and it's fascinating to learn about that really deep tunnel!
In 1996, there was a huge job recruitment push to help make this happen. It was good money and I almost did it, but the underground work made me think twice.
Great little video - tyvm. Keep in mind the context - Chicago is here BECAUSE if is flat and doesn't drain well - ( up ) the Chicago River - up a small hill and then trough a swamp ( Portage Park ) and you are on the Desplaines, which goes to the Illinois, and then to the Mississippi. This is the link between the Atlantic and the Gulf, and why people chose to live in a swamp.
I don't understand why combined sewers are just given a pass in environmental circles! They always act like it's an impossible problem to solve. When they just need to separate the rainwater from the sewer one street at a time over the next 50 years
The sewer separation project was considered in the 1960s. Economic studies at that time indicated the TARP plan was much less expensive. So the federal government, through the Corps of Engineers, blessed and partially funded the Tunnel and Reservoir Plan
@@riedjacobsen8620You say it like it's okay to release raw sewage into waterways today every year, because some stupid study in 1960s said it was better. Could you imagine if pick a corporation any corporation said the same thing in 1960s? I think everybody would be screaming stop pooping in the water you evil corporation! Nice platitudes, ha!
@@riedjacobsen8620 Why would you even write that? Change your statement to a "greedy corporation" did a study in the 1960s, that allows turds in the waterway. What kind of movie would be made? Would you think that was a good excuse? Yet you can't find an environmentalist that even cares about overflows of raw sewage every single summer all over the world since the 1960s. When a city should have incrementally divided the sewer! The big question is who gained from these stupid deep tunnel storage systems.
They're not, the conversion would just be extremely difficult and expensive. Just looks at how hard it's been to replace the lead pipes. It would also probably be harder to get funding to replace a system that ostensibly works as it is.
@@HeavyRayne Would "extremely difficult and expensive" be a good enough excuse for a corporation randomly dropping raw sewage into our waterways over the last 70 years? The money was stolen for these deep tunnel catchment projects, where politicians passes out favors without slowly and methodically upgrading the "lead" pipes and separating the sewers which would have been value add for the communities. If done little by little that separating would be done in these last 70 years. Where is the environmental types crying out for no more poop!
Retired MWRD pollution control officer here…made it as far as the drop shafts and visited numerous sampling locations where combined wastewater would enter the tunnel. Fortunately, the reservoirs are capable of handling the volume of water the tunnel can’t because those 1,000 year rain events are occurring every year and the tunnel only holds a few billion gallons. By the time I retired, Thornton still had some kinks to work out, McCook was good to go, and of course maintenance. Thornton is massive! For the record, the District is a self-taxing government body. We’re not affiliated with the city or Cook county, but home owners will recognize the organization in their property tax bill.
So I went and actually toured one area of the tunnel. It was like a massive room deep underground and a massive tunnel on one end of the room is was cool to see.
A few things I'll add. There is the working Thornton Quarry, across the I-294/I-80 expressway. it's an active quarry, the one on the north side that you see lots of brackish water and other sediment. This is the main overflow sewage area. However, they planned for the 100 year flood. There's a bridge that you can see halfway through the two quarries. You'll notice a round coffer dam on the north side(far) of the expressway, and then a bridge over an opening. Being bedrock they're pretty much already water proof, so they're perfect. That's there in case there's a huge once in a life time flood, or other major issues. The active quarry to the south will move all it's equipment out and then the water will go over the coffer dam and use the active quarry as overflow. After the emergency ends, the water treatment plants will drain both and the active quarry will clean up the mess. There's very little chance of it actually happening due to the other quarries being used.
The ridiculous idea is to combine sewer and storm water, convey it, store it, then try and treat it before the next storm. Keeping it separate from the start is the long term solution. This project fools engineers into thinking that it will eventually work. Sorry it does not now, and will never be able to fully treat all the combined sewage during the largest annual storms.
will it be able to handle the most extreme events 100%? probably not. however that dosent mean it "dosent work". its helped a lot actually. basements flood way less frequently than they used to. the chicago river is healthier than its ever been in the modern era. discharge events are far less, and even in extreme events less needs to be discharged because more is being held back. dont let perfect be the enemy of good. also i can guarantee you the cost to build out an entirely separate sewer system for the entire metro region would cost wayyyyyy more than the 4B this has cost as well. good luck selling chicagoland on even more tax increases. as a point of comparison, the plan to replace all the old gas pipes in the city was originally supposed to cost 2B - thats now up to 11B and massively behind schedule with even more cost over runs likely. and thats arguably a far simpler project.
An important an interest element here is that Chicago is one of the only cities in the world that treats not only sewage, but nearly ALL rainwater runoff that falls on the city. This is mainly because of treaties that limit the city's ability to dump water into Lake Michigan. There is also a really interesting element that the same treaties limit how much water the city can pull from the lake annually--and this includes the water that flows into the now-reversed Chicago river. That is why, during periods of high water usage, the flow of the river will come to almost a stop.
And still the flooding continues all across Chicago land ! Ask those residents how effective the deep tunnel project has worked. And then you have the Chicago River dumping that polluted water into Lake Michigan every time the gates are opened during or after a heavy rain
Even with this, a TON of dirty water still finds it's way into Lake Michigan. When you fly over Chicago during the day, you can clearly see how dirty the water is around Chicago vs the rest of the lake.
@@Chef-James I've flown in and out of O'Hare many times. You absolutely can see the difference between water near the shore and water in the middle of the lake. Much darker water near the shore.
One thing to note is the reason for the DTP is the lack of dedicated storm sewers in Chicago. The city was designed with COMBINED sewers, both sanitary and storm. This was a huge mistake. During heavy rainfalls ALL the water must now be treated as it contains sewage. A better system would just be piping storm water independently and directly to waterways. No need for this elaborate deep tunnel. Even if the deep tunnel works its still a fail. Someone decided the DTP would make more sense then adding storm sewers, but IMO, over the course of the last 50 years, they could have just put the storm sewers in and not have to treat every inch of rain that falls on Chicago.
Still a fail with success even if not total... as not yet complete also.... is not a failure. It was a American way to choose many times a cheaper alternative and lowest bidder contracts we still do. This was long ago and judging by knowing issues it would cause not known... would have as many legacy cities small and large did. It was a cheaper alternative that did work. Chicago would continue the grow also thru the 20th century and rain/snow events could increase. Even Lake Michigan rises by feet and drops over each decade. Rather than curb pollution and do costly preventive measures that perhaps at the time of the very late 1800s was not there... had little done to curb sewer, all sorts of industrial waste and even blood and carcasses of it massive Stock Yards slaughtering cattle to fill much of the nations needs by train. The river which our choices then with no regulations became a toxic dump and dead, but flowed into the lake polluting it and the cities drinking water. Again, not fixing pollution and lessening it, but choosing to reverse the river they did not know if it would actually work In 1900 secretly when complete the attempt to change the flow and use gravity worked... the river did flow outward now from the lake to the mississippi river. Then St Louis sewed Chicago, but was also polluting the river with its waste so was tossed. Then Canada and other states sued for too much lake water going down the river. That lead to the US to build the locks used today to limit water loss and all boats going from river to lake and visa versa go thru it as the lake is higher than the river by that again varies as the lake rises and falls. Chicago had plenty of success. Raising the city and streets that actually began before its 1871 great fire continued afterwards for a couple decades with a small city then vs today. The other is to rebuild and remake a new lakefront that was either lost by man or too marshy to have much of a solid one. The Daniel Burnham plan of 1909 which would redesign city streets with adding boulevards and a redone core of street to a half wagon wheel design, plus fill in the lake to create new parkland, harbors and beaches. Only a few boulevards were realized, the remaining of the core outward with Parisian buildings and streets never came. The making of a new lakefront which has a huge plan with only cheaper alternative was t just rebuild less or lose choices. Basically most of Chicago's lakefront today is manmade with parks, harbors and beaches by this grand plan and still gets added to. The downtown grand parks and 1/4 to 1/3 the core itself is on landfill. The neighborhood north of the river called Streeterville and is part of the Central Business District today has skyscrapers including supertalls on that landfill. Basically all of its main core street of Michigan Ave was where the lake actually came long ago. Aspects of landfill already began before the burnham plan also. Other cities that could have did that did not or to a much lesser amount. Plenty of fast growing sunbelt cities failed to heed warnings of growth, not take pricier options to save money and use lower regulations practices also. We all know how the Texas power grid chose to NOT use federal requirements adding cost and do it alone and the result of that in foods and freezes. So my point is.... cheaper options chosen occur regularly with still success even if not the choice as a full solution more costly claimed. Still cities choose no adding of rail as in part... also cost claimed no one wants though the world proves it works in cities vs very high car-dependence. We could have done thicker major highways that would last longer and thicker or superior asphalt to more use of road pavers, stone, brick as European cities chose that last longer including sidewalks especially vs concrete that deteriorates. SO THIS IS NOT A BLAME CHICAGO THING WHATSOEVER. It is political also and as we know... taxpayers do want cheaper alternatives and worry about not the best choice down the road to other generations..... I AM JUST A IDIOT yet some things just are about a solution that is faster and or cheaper that lead to pollution that did not need to be vs planning and building sewers earlier as a city grew. So many cities just used rivers as that and now some states enacted higher regulatory practice that some states boast no need for and we can look at Houston and how much damage and pollution, and flooding, building on land that should not have had homes, raising homes with a foundation of sorts vs a slab ground level as much cheaper though you risk main floor flooding in stormes. I THINK WHY.... raise homes a some kind of foundation or at least all as some now home over a garage and at least your main floor is spared.
@@guyincognito210 I love how environmentalists never complain about combined sewers! When every heavy rainfall for the last 150 years there's a good chance raw sewage goes in our waterways. But if a farmer with a little bit of manure has one accident...
There is one important advantage of treating all the water rather than splitting the surface water, and that's that the surface water is also polluted from chemicals and faeces spilled in the streets or poured into street drains. So building a split system and discharging surface water into the river puts that pollution into the river. Going the route of keeping the combined system and building big enough storage and treatment systems to cope with heavy rainfall is actually better because then all the dirty water is treated before release.
@@adrianthoroughgood1191 Go ahead and treat the storm water. Just do it separately from raw sewage. So that way when you have an overflow it's just the less dirty surface water not sewage. Have you seen the pictures from Milwaukee every summer? I can't imagine any corporation getting away with dumping a single turd into a waterway, and then being able to make excuses that it's too hard or expensive.
@@adrianthoroughgood1191 True, but this is a city of well over 2-million people and no doubt, border suburbs built similar to the city also. Would it not be digging up endless streets and sidewalks and who knows where pipes run under housing, the river etc. The point is not what would be a perhaps better fix. Though you still have capacity issues with more sewage treatment capacity needed, but perhaps still the quarry holding areas utilized and decades still perhaps till on-line anyway overall. I can imagine all the tunnels could have a new subway system. Yet a choice was made that did not disrupt the surface and in segments opened over the decades. Still is not fully complete. Large and small cities all over the nation have joint sewer systems as it was to save some money back-in-the-day. Chicago has a tradition of full basements that over the decades owners finished for entertainment use, another kitchen as sometimes a new kitchen upstairs had the old cabinets reassembled in the basement and ultimately a basement if dry and waterproofed could be finished as part of the home as another floor. Going thru homes for sale you see this and more basements got protected despite still a few area of the city that occasionally in storms have a issue of backup that also has pipes to the deep tunnel can only carry also so much water in spot. There is a plan of redoing Chicago's vast alleyway system with pavers that allow water seeping thru vs going into sewers alone. Some alleys in elite areas got some. Just too costly for a city with debt to just repave alleys when streets also need it. Chicago has its elevated rail system as a cheaper alternative to subways and risk though of its underground with their tech of the 1800s and early 20th century. All across this nation are projects chosen as a cheaper alternative from light surface rail vs heavy rail or subway to this day.
I love videos like this that show pictures of the old world. I wish I was born then. This time period blows. I'm 30years old and all I know of this world is war... maybe in another life.
I think all cities across the world need to invest in public spaces that have permeable surfaces. Not only does it reduce or slow down waste water run off, it helps to restore ground water aquifers.
That thumbnail is insane. Clearly that is solid rock and is fully strong enough to support a multi lanefreeway, but it’s pretty odd to be driving on perfectly flat ground and then suddenly be on the edge of a cliff
This is a lot of questions I had as a kid why we drove under crown in Chicago. My family owned the coach company, and we always traveled underneath. The city never knew why, if you ever drove culture made deliveries in Chicago you know what I mean it’s like the entire city has a parking deck underneath it
You hint at the kind of math that makes humongous municipal projects (concentrated) more desirable over many small projects (distributed). Municipalities look at the numbers that are more visible in their budget (labor, time, warrantee/risk) than the numbers that would be less fragile but take many more labor hours, more overall time because ribbon cuttings aren’t a thing and projects are ongoing, and the risk is the inability to point a finger or two in court for all the problems.
It's a local indian word "chicagoua" after a native garlic plant Allium tricoccum, not "place of bad smells". The lakes and streams around Chicago were once full of wild onions, leeks and this native garlic plant .
but seriously, will these catchment pond ever be completely empty to scoop out what will surely be a thick layer of toxic sludge at the bottom or will it be agitated while being pumped into treatment?
My daughter & son-in -law lived in Oak Park from 2020-2021, nothing but problems when a down pour would come around. About ten times a year water in basement, floods around house. Moved to higher ground and never looked back.
Very interesting, those holes are almost unbelievable. Do somewhat want to pushback on London’s tideway being copied from this, it’s more intended to capture overflows from an older system and it’s not like the city doesn’t have experience digging deep long tunnels for the last 100ish years
Interesting. I grew up in Lyn right my the McCook part of this project. never knew that about it. I lived across from the quarry my 1st ave. every day at non they would blast .
@@Nyth63 a lot of the people and most if not all the politicians have a very elevated view of themselves as if the rest of the state really doesn’t matter at all there fore the poles put in place that are seemingly good for Chicago are very detrimental to down state region and as long as it’s good for me it’s for for thee.
Meditation brings wisdom; lack of mediation leaves ignorance. Know well what leads you forward and what hold you back, and choose the path that leads to wisdom.
since ive ever been doing chicago construction, and the surrounding towns, every contract has the property keeping all of the storm water on site, either in detention ponds, or underground chambers that are underneath the pavement. It adds like a million dollars to each job because the concrete chambers are like 400 grand, and then the labor and stone backfill. MWRD is your daddy, Metropolitan Water Reclamation District, and you aren't building a single thing until you tell them where the water will go, and they say its okay to do that. I just had to bring it up cause you only mentioned bioswales, which are tiny and dont hold much anyways. Thats why theres a huge pond outside of every building, cause its cheaper to dig out a pond and haul off the dirt, then it is to dig out under the pavement and buy expensive concrete chambers, and still have to haul the dirt out.
I suggest you take a look at the Orlando Wetlands Park. It provides secondary treatment for Orlando’s waste water while also providing recreational and wildlife protection functions.
The City of Orlando pipes in the treated water and the Orlando Wetlands finishes the job by moving the water through 16 or 17 cells. These cells contain plants that filter the water further and further until it's released into the ST.Johns River and something like 95% pure. The entire acreage is 1650 acres. Great place with lots of migratory birds and others...
Clearly the problem is the combined sewage and storm water systems. Hopefully they are doing what they can to separate the two systems in new development, in addition to the surface level nature based solutions for storm water catchment.
