A boring project is managing to attract quite a bit of interest and attention in Newburgh. While by definition boring means dull, uninteresting or tiresome, it also can describe the process of tunneling through rock and it”™s the latter that”™s happening in Newburgh. As part of the $32 million North Interceptor Sewer Improvement Project, the city is installing 8,700 linear feet of new larger capacity sewer piping to upgrade the sewer infrastructure and help protect the water quality of the Hudson River by increasing sewer capacity to reduce overflows into the river.
Part of the project involves tunneling through bedrock to lay about 2,000 feet of new sewer pipe. Tunneling through the bedrock eliminates the tedious job of digging up the terrain to place the new pipe in a deep trench. A specially designed Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) is being used to cut through the bedrock.
Jason Morris, commissioner of public works and city engineer for Newburgh, said that the 35,000-pound TBM was fabricated in Maryland specifically for the North Interceptor Sewer Project at a cost of $1.5 million. He said the TBM would be lowered into a 50-foot shaft and then launched to cut horizontally through the bedrock.
“This sewer infrastructure project demonstrates the City of Newburgh”™s commitment to renew its infrastructure to not only allow for the economic revitalization of the city but also to protect the region”™s most valuable natural resource, the Hudson River,” Morris said. “Once completed in the spring of 2024 and in combination with the other City of Newburgh combined sewer infrastructure projects this project will reduce combined sewer overflows to the Hudson River by 56 million gallons per year.”
The Newburgh project is the first clean water infrastructure project in New York state funded by last year”™s federal bipartisan infrastructure law. Funding includes: a $10 million grant from the Water Quality Improvement Program; a $5.57 million grant from the Water Infrastructure Improvement grant program; a $5.57 million grant from the Clean Water State Revolving Fund; a $3.55 million grant and $2.56 million in short-term interest-free financing from the infrastructure law”™s general supplemental funds.
Newburgh”™s Mayor Torrance Harvey said, “The residents and businesses of Newburgh are entitled to clean and healthy water, and I commend Gov. Hochul, the New York state teams and our congressional partners for delivering the financial resources that help make this important project possible. Plain and simple, it will help ensure that generations of Newburgh residents will grow up in a cleaner, healthier community. This is what government working together for the people looks like and we”™re excited to be moving forward together on this project.”
Dan Shapley of the environmental organization Riverkeeper said, “Votes matter. If we vote for the folks who are going to commit money to these infrastructure projects we”™re going to get these infrastructure projects done and we”™ll clean that river.”
Shapley said that while Gov. Hochul has included $500 million in the next state budget for clean water infrastructure projects like the one in Newburgh, Riverkeeper would like to see that amount raised to $1 billion.
“Why? Because this project isn”™t the last that we need,” Shapley said. “We have $2.2 billion in wastewater infrastructure projects that communities in the Hudson watershed have identified that they need help on. Newburgh as we heard can”™t do this project alone and it”™s the same up and down the river. Each of these communities has big work that they need to do and they need that state and federal support so we want to see that investment made.”
