New York City awarding $1.1B to Tutor Perini subsidiary, Frontier-Kemper, for Kensico to Eastview tunnel project in Catskills. Aiming to enhance water supply system for city and Westchester County. Project to last 10 years, with new tunnel expected to be fully operational by 2035.
Map courtesy of NYC Department of Environmental Protection
In late July, the New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) broke ground on its $1.9 billion Kensico to Eastview tunneling and facilities upgrade project in the Westchester County town of Mt. Pleasant, designed to improve the operational flexibility of the drinking water supply for millions of people in the nation's largest city.
It will represent New York City's largest water-supply tunneling effort in Westchester County since the 1940s, and its construction will create hundreds of jobs for local laborers, DEP said in a press release.
The centerpiece of the project, known as the Kensico-Eastview Connection (KEC), will be a 2-mi.-long tunnel between Kensico Reservoir and the Catskill-Delaware Ultraviolet Light Disinfection Facility (CDUV) in Eastview.
The new underground waterway will provide an additional conveyance between these two vital components of the water supply system, giving DEP the ability to take other facilities out of service for periodic maintenance and inspection.
"Creating additional redundancy in our vital water supply system is an essential investment for the long-term resilience of the remarkable feat of engineering that provides more than 9 million New Yorkers with a reliable supply of pristine tap water," DEP Commissioner Rohit T. Aggarwala explained last summer. "This project will help us fulfill our commitment to providing consistent and reliable delivery of the highest-quality water to New York City and the growing population centers in Westchester County."
System's Water Capacity to Increase With New Tunnels
The first phase of construction includes site preparation at the DEP campus adjacent to Kensico Reservoir, followed by the digging of two large shafts, each 400- to 500-ft.-deep, as well as tunneling between the two shafts, and the addition of several new facilities and upgrades at the Kensico campus.
The new tunnels will increase the system's capacity enough to allow it to carry as much as 2.6 billion gallons of water each day.
Southern California-based Tutor Perini Corp. a leading civil, building and specialty construction firm, announced Oct. 23 that its subsidiary, Frontier-Kemper Constructors, has been awarded a contract valued at approximately $1.1 billion by DEP for the KEC tunnel project.
The scope of work for Frontier-Kemper, headquartered in Evansville, Ind., with an office in New York City, includes the construction of the new deep-rock tunnel between the reservoir and the CDUV facility.
The tunnel dig is expected to begin in the coming months with substantial completion expected in 2030, Tutor-Perini noted in a statement.
DEP said that all phases of the project are expected to span a 10-year period with the new tunnel coming fully online by 2035.
Contractor Set to Use a Tunnel-Boring Machine
Kensico Reservoir is located north of White Plains, N.Y., and is a vital component of New York City's Catskill-Delaware Water Supply System. It currently stores approximately 30 billion gal. of water at full capacity.
DEP draws about 1 billion gal. of drinking water from Kensico Reservoir each day to meet the needs of 8.6 million residents in the five boroughs of New York City and approximately 500,000 residents of Westchester County whose communities are connected to the city system.
As it moves south toward the metropolis, drinking water that leaves Kensico Reservoir is also treated at CDUV.
Frontier-Kemper's contract calls for the company to construct a pair of new shafts to facilitate the tunnel's construction and water conveyance, Tunnels and Tunneling reported.
The downtake shaft, KEC Shaft 1C, will be located at the Kensico Campus near the KEC Screen Chamber, while the uptake shaft, KEC Shaft 2C, will be situated at the Eastview Connection Chamber (ECC).
The contractor will utilize a tunnel boring machine to horizontally dig the KEC Tunnel, starting from the KEC Eastview Site and advancing east where it will connect with KEC Shaft 1C.
When finished, the new tunnel will have an inner diameter of approximately 27 ft. and be lined with at least 1.5 ft. of cast-in-place concrete along its entire length.
Additionally, upon its completion, the Kensico-Eastview Connection project will increase the flow of water to the CDUV facility and enhance the DEP's ability to maintain normal operating levels at the nearby Hillview Reservoir during single-basin operations.
New facilities and sitework at both the reservoir and CDUV are also due to be built.
For example, a century-old intake chamber at Kensico Reservoir will be upgraded and enlarged to draw water into the new tunnel, the reservoir's shoreline around that intake chamber will be improved to prevent sediment from escaping into the water tunnel, and the Kensico campus will receive utility, grading and drainage overhauls.
In addition, a new screen chamber to remove debris from the water will be built just north of DEP's main campus at the reservoir, near Columbus Avenue in Valhalla, and the chemical addition systems at Kensico will be improved to ensure for the continued proper treatment of drinking water.
Lastly, DEP plans to construct a connection chamber at the Eastview CDUV to receive water from the new tunnel. Crews working at the site will also take on several projects related to drainage, stormwater, and utility improvements.
Kensico Reservoir was first built in 1915 as part of New York City's Catskill Water Supply System. The facility was modified in the 1940s to receive water from New York's Delaware Water Supply System, also in the Catskills. Those two systems — collectively referred to as the Catskill-Delaware System — make up the largest unfiltered water supply in the United States.
DEP manages water delivered from a watershed that extends more than 125 mi. from the city, comprising 19 reservoirs and three controlled lakes. Approximately 7,000 mi. of water mains, tunnels, and aqueducts bring water to homes and businesses throughout New York City, and 7,500 mi. of sewer lines and 96 pump stations take wastewater to 14 in-city treatment plants.
The agency also has a robust capital program, with $29 billion in investments planned over the next decade.
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