Lynchburg, Va., plans $100 million tunnel project to conquer sewer overflow and CSO compliance

VIRGINIA (UI) — City officials hope that the completion of a new nearly $100 million tunnel project, which would eliminate one of the city's worst wastewater overflow locations, will help the city of Lynchburg get closer to fulfilling the terms of its combined sewer overflow agreement, Lynchburg News and Advance reported.

Lynchburg, one of just three cities in Virginia with a CSO agreement, is one of only 860 localities nationally that must eventually eliminate all of its combined sewer sites, said Tim Mitchell, the city's director of water resources.

Regarding the tunnel's specifications, it is anticipated that it will be 4,700 feet long, sit 80 feet below ground, and extend from the CSO site along the Blackwater Creek path to a pump station that will be constructed at the location where U.S. Pipe is currently located at 10 Adams St. in the heart of the city.

According to Mitchell, a tunnel boring machine is expected to be used to build the tunnel, which will have a completed diameter of roughly 12 feet. The tunnel will run entirely beneath city-owned property, with the exception of a tiny patch of land near U.S. Pipe and a Norfolk Southern train track.

He also noted that the city's CSO infrastructure was established around the middle of the 1800s.

According to the director, as reported by Lynchburg News and Advance, "The idea was to get the sewer and stormwater away from the populated areas as quickly as possible, so everything was put in the same pipe and piped to the same stream and the streams carried the pollution away."

However, due to the overflow locations, severe rain can still cause situations where mixed raw sewage and rainfall run into creeks and streams, eventually ending up in the James River. Due to the tremendous downpours that occurred last week, the city issued two CSO notifications informing citizens that extra wastewater had been discharged into the James River.

The vast majority of the city's CSO points have already been stabilized. Since the 1993 implementation of the state consent decree mandating the removal of all overflow points, Lynchburg has removed 115 of the 132 overflow sites located around the city, reducing the overflow volume by 93%.

Mitchell recently informed Lynchburg City Council that the city has spent $307 million on the project thus far, with cash coming from a variety of sources throughout the years, including local, state, and federal funds.

Since he has been with the agency, Mitchell said that water resources have been successful in securing more than $100 million in state and federal funds for the CSO project.

But CSO 52, an overflow site along the site of Honor Trail, between Hollins Mill and downtown Lynchburg, which runs into Blackwater Creek during significant rainfall events, is still the biggest CSO point that has to be addressed for the city.

According to Mitchell, the city is considering starting a CSO tunnel project to address one of the biggest overflow locations still present on the estimated three-year development timeframe.

Mitchell stated that the project's "opinion of probable cost" is around $98 million, plus or minus 20%. Mitchell stated last week that a total of $112 million in funding, consisting of a combination of federal, state, and local dollars, has already been approved by the city council to be used on the project.

A $25 million local match, which Mitchell said his department would apply for through the Virginia Clean Water Revolving Loan Fund, was required of the $112 million appropriated, of which a total of $50 million in American Rescue Plan Act funding was approved in the Virginia General Assembly in 2021 and 2022 for the project.

The ARPA financing, however, ends in December 2026, therefore Mitchell said the project must be completed to a specified point before then.

During the July 11 work session with the city council, Mitchell discussed the plan to build a pump station on a small property owned by U.S. Pipe, allowing sewage to flow into the tunnel during rainfall and later be pumped back into the sewer line for treatment at the wastewater treatment plant.

However, Mitchell mentioned that several challenges lie ahead for the city, including obtaining approval from Norfolk Southern for a tunnel crossing beneath their tracks, conducting an environmental assessment by the Department of Environmental Quality, and acquiring the necessary property from U.S. Pipe for the pump station.

Mitchell expressed his department's pursuit of a categorical exclusion for the tunnel from DEQ, citing concerns that undergoing an environmental assessment might impede the project's critical schedule, which aligns with the ARPA funding guidelines.

City leaders have consistently commended the progress made in finalizing the CSO agreement, with City Manager Wynter Benda acknowledging the foresight of previous city councils for investing in infrastructure well before he assumed the role of city manager.

At-large City Councilor Martin Misjuns praised Mitchell for his department's efforts during the most recent presentation and even expressed a desire to travel along in the tunnel boring machine when it is operational.

In the end, Mitchell stated that the city intends to have the project's design finished by December, with construction hopefully starting in the spring of 2024. He predicted that, with luck, the project will be finished by December 2026.

Lynchburg is not in the same situation as the other Virginia communities with CSO agreements, which all have strict timeframes to finish theirs. In a recent interview with The News & Advance, Mitchell stated that the city has no set schedule but rather follows a "Tim Mitchell timeline," adding that he hopes to get the CSO agreement finished "by the time I retire."

Mitchell said that following the tunnel project, the city would only need to spend $15 million to $18 million on three minor CSO sites to complete the consent order agreement.

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