'Water Breakthrough' for UK's Longest Tunnel12/05/2009 |
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| Work to extend Britain's longest tunnel - a giant circular water main 45 metres under London - hit a major milestone today as engineers extending it broke through into the original shaft. Thames Water's London Ring Main, a 50-mile water tunnel forming a complete ring around the capital, is being extended to the north and south of the River Thames at a cost of GBP95million, to enable it to meet growing demand by significantly boosting the amount of water it carries across a wider area. |
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Today, after 12 months of digging, a tunnel-boring machine munched and crunched its way into the existing Ring Main to complete the new northern extension, which runs from Stoke Newington in Hackney to New River Head in Islington. Tunnelling on the southern extension, from Honor Oak to Brixton, will finish next month. Both tunnels will be lined with steel and concrete and connected into the Ring Main ready for service in March 2010.
The northern extension will allow the transfer of water from Coppermills Water Treatment Works into the Ring Main, or the transfer of water from Thames Valley sources to Coppermills, in the event of major treatment works failure at Coppermills. The southern route will allow up to 200 million litres of water per day to be transferred from the Thames Water Ring Main at Brixton to the Honor Oak reservoirs.
In the event of a major burst main or incident that would drastically affect customers' supply, the extensions will enable Thames Water to move bulk amounts of water to the affected areas, minimising the impact of any loss of water supply.
Both extensions are 5.8 miles long in total (northern extension is 2.8 miles) and approximately 45 metres below the surface, well below the depth of any service pipes or cables and the London Underground.
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