Quebec and Maritimes
City of Montreal
The Jarry tunnel project has been awarded to EBC for the construction of a 2.3m-diameter, 4.1km-long tunnel, mined with a Robbins TBM. The project will install a 1.2m-diameter water main for a budget price set to CAD 74M (USD 56M). The City of Montreal is also studying another tunnel project to secure the city water intake from the threat of possible contaminants. The project would involve a 6m-diameter tunnel of 900m in length.
STM
The blue line extension has not yet been officially announced but is certainly under study by the STM for five new stations along the Jean-Talon Street for 5.5km of additional lines. The costs of the blue line extension project is estimated at around CAD 3bn (USD 2.28bn). Also the new Azur cars that are planned to replaced older metro cars will require the construction of a new underground garage with a preliminary budget of CAD 400M (USD 304M).
Caisse de Dépot (CDPQ)
The recently announced major project worth CAD 5.5bn (USD 4.18bn) was well received by the population. This light rail system will involve 67km of electrified rails with 24 stations and will use the new Champlain bridge to cross the St-Lawrence river. Final rails location and elevation are not yet set but there are possible underground sections required.
Construction is set to begin in 2017 under design build contracts and commissioning is planned in 2020. The electrified light rail system would be the third longest in the world behind Dubai (80km) and Vancouver (68km).
Alberta
Despite the severe economic downturn in the Province of Alberta, there is considerable tunnelling activity underway. On the small diameter water/sanitary range, highlights are an upcoming deep storm sewer tunnel located along 105 Street in Edmonton's downtown core, for which a design build delivery has been established.
In Calgary, a number of microtunnels have been recently completed successfully by specialist contractor Ward and Burke, and a few more were about to get underway at the time of publication.
In the Light Rail Transit (LRT) transportation sector, there are two large ongoing projects:
Edmonton Valley Line LRT (Stage 1)
In Edmonton, work is now underway on the CAD 1.8bn (USD 1.37bn) Edmonton Valley Line LRT (Stage 1), with construction of a 500m soft ground tunnel segment scheduled to start in the first half of 2017. This segment, located between the Muttart and Quarters stops and on the north side of the North Saskatchewan River, will extend from the river bank to just west of Jasper Avenue and 95 Street, where the tracks return to street level. It will consist of twin single track bores excavated using the SEM.
This is a public-private partnership project that includes a five-year design-build stage and a 30 year operation and maintenance term, which was awarded to TransEd Partners, a consortium led by EllisDon, Bombardier and Fengate Capital Management.
City of Calgary
In Calgary, after considering a number of options that entailed several combinations of at grade, elevated and underground tracks, the Green Line LRT Owner’s Engineer’s team, which includes Hatch, Stantec and Thurber Engineering, made its recommendation for tunnelling a significant portion of the City Centre alignment. The tunnel segment is approximately 3km long and includes twin single track tunnels and five underground stations, which are envisaged to be constructed as a combination deep open cut boxes and or SEM. It also includes crossings of the Bow River and several railway tracks, in a very congested area of the town. This underground option is currently being evaluated by an independent City of Calgary Committee, with a final decision expected this fall.
Manitoba and Saskatchewan
Recent projects
To open up the southeast quadrant of the city for further development, the City of Saskatoon undertook a major extension of their sanitary and storm trunk sewer systems. The extensions included more than 1,500m of 1,200mm sanitary trunk sewer installed along McOrmond Drive from Willowgrove Boulevard to College Drive (Highway 5) and a parallel 2,400mm diameter storm trunk sewer of similar length.
The City-issued design-build tender was awarded to the Michels Canada/Stantec Consulting Ltd. Team. Each sewer was installed using a two-pass tunnelling system with initial support provided by steel ribs and wood lagging and the final tunnel liner provided by grouted in place Hobas pipe. The tunnels were installed at depths of up to 15m. With the completion of the sanitary and storm trunk extensions, an additional population of 80,000 can be serviced as growth in the southeast area of Saskatoon continues.
Near term projects
The proposed 50 MW Tazi Twe hydroelectric project is located on Black Lake and the Fond du Lac River in northern Saskatchewan. It will be the first new Saskatchewan hydro project in more than 30 years, and will be the first hydro facility built entirely on reserve land. The project will help to meet a growing demand for power in northern Saskatchewan. Black Lake First Nation selected SaskPower as their preferred partner, and an agreement in principle was signed in 2013. Federal environmental approvals are in place, and community members recently voted in favour of proceeding with the CAD 630M (USD 479M) project.
Project conveyance includes an approximately 3km-long drill and blast tunnel in gneissic bedrock, with an 11m-wide and 10m-high inverted U-shaped cross section, and a minimum of about 30m bedrock cover above most tunnel sections. Zones of mafic intrusives (metadiabase, metagabbro) will also be encountered along the tunnel.
The intake channel leading into the tunnel portal will be constructed at the Black Lake Shear Zone, where banded gneiss with a mylonitic texture is juxtaposed with Athabasca sandstones lying immediately to the east along the shore of Black Lake. An adit will be constructed to allow for headings to be established in two locations; this adit will daylight at an elevation above Black Lake, and will remain in place as a surge facility to control hydraulic transient pressures during plant operations. A drill and blast rock excavation will also be necessary for the powerhouse, and for an 850m-long tailrace channel that will be 20m wide and on average approximately 7.5m deep.
The project designer is KGS Group Consulting Engineers (with Golder Associates on the tunnel works). The Early Contractor Involvement project delivery process has progressed to the 80 per cent design level, with involvement to date from Peter Kiewit Infrastructure, along with EBC Inc. involved in the tunnel works.
Final approvals are anticipated during Q4 of 2016, with early works starting during Q3 of 2017, and first power is currently targeted during 2020.
Near term to future projects
Several tunnelling projects are in planning for the City of Winnipeg as part of two overlapping City programs, the Basement Flood Relief program (BFR), and the Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) Management program. Four major projects are currently underway as part of the BFR program. Together, while the final installations may vary somewhat, these four projects have more than 14km of possible pipe installations in excess of 1,200 mm.
Capital investment in tunnelling projects for both the BRF and CSP master plan are expected to increase over the upcoming years, with investment in the CSO program beginning as early as 2018.
This planned investment in buried infrastructure has and continues to pique the interest of tunnelling companies from across North America.
British Columbia
British Columbia remains one of the most active markets in Canada for tunnelling and underground works. While a few projects are nearing completion this year, there are many interesting projects that are expected over the next few years. Metro Vancouver’s Port Mann 1km-long by 3.5m-diameter tunnel was completed last year under pressures up to 6 bar. Mechanical and electrical work is being completed and final commissioning is expected by the end of this year.
Metro Vancouver has more tunnel projects planned: the Second Narrows Water Supply tunnel, a 1.1km-long, 5m-diameter tunnel connecting the Vancouver suburbs of North Vancouver and Burnaby below Burrard Inlet. Geotechnical drilling investigation for the detailed design work took place on both sides of Burrard Inlet in 2015 and was completed in January. Detailed design work should be completed by fall 2017. Construction is expected to take place from 2018 to 2022. The Annacis Main No. 5 Water Tunnel is a proposed water supply tunnel beneath the Fraser River connecting the Greater Vancouver suburbs of New Westminster and Surrey. The project is in the early stages of planning and construction is anticipated to begin in 2020. Conceptual design for Metro Vancouver’s Coquitlam Water Intake No. 2 tunnel (7km by 4m minimum diameter) began in 2015.
The John Hart Generating Station Replacement Hydro project in Campbell River, on Vancouver Island, was awarded to InPower BC, a joint venture of SNC and Aecon. The underground works were performed by a JV of SNC-Aecon and Frontier-Kemper. As of the end of August, the surge shaft tunnel, the underground powerhouse and the main access tunnel had been completely excavated: two-thirds of the 1,575m-long power tunnel and three fourths of the 520m-long tailrace tunnel remained to be excavated.
It took 13 months, and 485 blasts, to excavate the 60,000 cubic metres of rock for the powerhouse cavern. Commissioning of this new generating facility is scheduled for fall 2018.
Approximately 60km north of Pemberton, Innergex Renewable Energy is developing the Upper Lillooet and Boulder Creek hydroelectric facilities (HEF). The construction of both facilities is being carried out by CRT-EBC, a joint venture of EBC Inc. and CRT Construction Inc.
The Upper Lillooet HEF is an 81.4 MW plant with a water conveyance system consisting of 1.35km of 3.2m-diameter penstock and approximately 2km-long inverted D-shaped tunnel, 6m wide and 5.5m high: the Upper Lillooet tunnel was completed at the end of July after successfully managing some difficult mixed face ground with high water inflows using a grouted pipe umbrella system with lattice girders and shotcrete.
The Boulder Creek HEF is a 25.3 MW run-of-river hydro project and includes a 2,900m-long inverted D-shaped tunnel, 3.6m wide x 4.5m high excavated from the downstream portal with approximately 2km of that tunnel being excavated with a 13 per cent uphill grade. The Boulder Creek excavation tunnel was completed at the end of August. The Upper Lillooet HEF is expected to be commissioned by the end of the year, while Boulder Creek is expected to be commissioned in early 2017.
The Evergreen Line Rapid Transit Project includes a 2km-long concrete segment tunnel excavated with a 10m-diameter CAT EPBM: started in June 2014, tunnel excavation is now complete and Translink, Metro Vancouver’s regional transportation authority, expects to have the line in service in early 2017.
TransLink and the City of Vancouver are both supporting the tunnel option for the Millennium Line Broadway-UBC extension. Translink is working with its partners to advance planning and design work for this project. If funding from all three levels of governments is confirmed in 2017, construction could begin as early as 2019 with final commissioning expected four to six years later.
Other upcoming projects of note in the mining sector include Seabridge Gold’s KSM project. Overall, the current Seabridge conceptual design shows more than 100km of tunnels including twin 23km-long ore conveyance and access tunnels as well as numerous other drainage tunnels and galleries.
Some major pipeline projects in British Columbia also have tunnels planned along their alignment. Kinder Morgan’s Transmountain Pipeline project is planned to go through a 3.8m-diameter, 2kmlong tunnel under Burnaby Mountain.
The Northern Gateway project includes two tunnels along its planned alignment: the Clore and Hoult tunnels located approximately 50km east of Kitimat.
The British Columbia chapter holds talks every month between September and June on a variety of topics. Everyone is welcome to attend.
Ontario
Ontario continues to have a substantial amount of work currently underway, with plenty of projects currently in the prequalification and tender stage and quite a good outlook for projects on the horizon.
Here is a rundown on some current, near term and future projects in Ontario:
Current projects
ECLRT – Eglinton Cross Town Light Rail Transit, Toronto
The Obayashi/Kenaidan/Kenny Joint Venture has completed the tunnelling on the ECLRT West Contract.
The Aecon/Dragados Joint Venture has completed tunnelling on one of the twin tubes on the ECLRT East Contract, and the second TBM is close to breakthrough as well. TBMs will be removed once the reception shaft is completed.
OLRT – Ottawa Light Rail Transit, Ottawa
The OLRT project, being constructed by the Rideau Transit Group (Ellis Don, SNC Lavalin, and Dragados Canada) is well underway and scheduled for completion this year. TAC members attending the TAC Ottawa conference in October will have an opportunity to visit the site.
Mid-Halton Outfall and Zone 1 Interconnect Tunnels, Oakville
Strabag is constructing the Mid-Halton Outfall tunnel project. The project is well underway, shafts have been excavated, tunnelling is ongoing, the marine work and riser installation will be performed by Dean Construction.
The project is scheduled for completion in mid-to-late 2017. C & M McNally Engineering is constructing the Mid-Halton Zone 1 interconnect tunnel contract. The project is well underway and tunnelling is in full swing.
Ottawa Combined Sewage Storage Tunnel, Ottawa
The Combined Sewage Storage Tunnel (CSST) bid in April of this year and was awarded to Dragados/Tomlinson JV. The project consists of approximately 6km of 3m-diameter rock tunnelling utilizing a TBM that can install 3m ID prefabricated concrete segments.
More updates on this project will become available at the TAC Ottawa conference.
Bathurst & Teston Road Watermain, Richmond Hill
CRS Tunnelling has completed the 685m long tunnel on Bathurst Street. The tunnel was constructed through water bearing, mixed ground conditions, utilizing an EPBM that installed 3m ID prefabricated concrete segment. The watermain has also been installed inside the tunnel, hydrostatically tested, and passed.
Near term and future projects
There is a slew of projects under design and scheduled to be let for tender in the future, such as: West Whitby Trunk Sewer, Burnhamthorpe Water project; Sheppard East LRT; Downtown Relief Line; and Coxwell By-pass east river tunnel, Fairbanks Silverthorn, CP Rail Tunnel from Windsor to Detroit; Ontario Power Generation deep geologic repository tunnels for nuclear waste; to name a few. There is new government funding for transit that could translate to more tunnel opportunities to come. The outlook for Ontario continues to look promising.
There continues to be a very active microtunnelling market in Ontario. Many projects are currently being constructed all over the province, such as: Brittania Road, Bradford West Gwillimbury, Rebecca Street, Midblock collector, MTO highway crossings, Streetsville, etc.
These projects are being completed by the three main microtunnel contractors in Ontario: Ward & Burke Microtunnelling; Earth Boring; and CRS Tunnelling. Many more microtunnelling projects are scheduled to be tendered this year with plenty of activity that will continue into the next year.
TAC is hosting a conference in Ottawa on October 16th to 18th of this year. The theme of this year’s conference is “Capitalizing on Underground Infrastructure”. Don’t miss this one, as the conference will be packed with well-known speakers, interesting paper presentations and exhibits. Please visit the TAC website (www.tunnelcanada.ca) for more information about the conference and how to register.
Also, don’t forget to visit the TAC website for information about our TAC Ontario monthly presentations and site visits, scheduled on the last Thursday of every month. They are a great networking opportunity… see you there!
