I was recently reading a random article in the Chicago Tribune and it made passing reference to the Chicago Deep Tunnel project, otherwise known as the Tunnel and Reservoir Plan (TARP), which I had never heard of before. From what I can gather about the project (during an exhaustive Wikipedia search), it was started 30 over years ago, it is still going on, it seems to be an extension of the Chicago River flow reversal project, it has cost $3B so far, and it won’t be complete for at least 8 more years. So what’s the dope with this project? Where are they digging? How will it impact my life? Is this some 30+ year political boondoggle?
You might enjoy this video where the host tours one of the tunnels with some of the engineers before that section of the tunnel was opened.
A bit of trivia: At the time the project was proposed, a small independent film called Deep Throat had gone the pre-internet equivalent of viral. (It was not as widely viewed as Friday, but it did cause quite a mainstream buzz.) The detractors of the project began referring to it as “Deep Tunnel” and the name stuck.
I don’t know that it had anything to do with the reversal of the river. I believe it was a very forwarding-looking project. Today, we could probably never undertake a project of this magnitude, we have no political will. (And I’m not just referring to the recent economic problems or the rise of the Tea Party.)
It seems that the TARP was used to drain off the water from the Chicago flood of 1992, so it was useful at least once.
I’ve been hearing about this project on and off for years, but have never seen an exhaustive article on it. Sounds like a good project for SD-Chicago.
By the by, we could certainly use better drainage, if that is one of its goals. The streets in my Lincoln Park neighborhood flood at the slightest sign of rain!
Is there a good text summary available?
The system has been in use for decades, but because some of the reservoirs were never constructed, it can’t yet hold the full runoff from a really big storm.
Here’s a quick overview, with a map I drew.
According to that map, if the north-south tunnel which is a bit west of First Avenue in Brookfield isn’t directly under my house, it’s danged close. I didn’t realize it was that close to us.
The map is generalized—though not as abstract as the one the MWRDGC puts out. When I was drawing it back in 2003, the district was paranoid about security and declined to provide any info about the routes. Luckily, enough stuff had been published before 9/11 for me to piece it together. Most of the tunnels run under forest preserve land or directly under rivers, where ownership is not an issue.
I did a little tour of the McCook reservoir while it was being constructed a couple years ago. Pretty impressive. Lots of grouting and blasting in limestone. The capacity will be something like 6 billion gallons.
Ahhh, makes sense, then. We’re three blocks west of Forest Preserve land (and the Zoo), so that’s probably where it is.
Deep tunnel was never finished because Bill Lipinski stopped the the Vulcan Quarry part because voters living by it protested !