Akron has reached a major milestone in its billion-dollar sewer overhaul. The city announced the Ohio Canal Interceptor Tunnel is 100 percent connected.
All of the downtown sewers will now flow through the new tunnel. Pat Gsellman, who is overseeing the project, says the new 63-hundred-foot long tunnel will have a positive environmental impact.
“So all that overflow that would have eventually ended up in the Cuyahoga River, we’re capturing around 500 million gallons a year of flow that will now be treated at the waste water plant.”
The tunnel is part of a 2014 consent decree mandated by the Environmental Protection Agency for improving the city’s sewer infrastructure.
Gsellman says there is still a lot of site work that needs to be done. The project is expected to be wrapped up in the next few months.
