Pittsburgh just put a price on cleaning up its rivers, and it’s about a billion dollars. The Allegheny County Sanitary Authority (ALCOSAN) has awarded the Ohio River Tunnel contract to Steel City Tunnel Partners, an even joint venture of Lane Construction and Pittsburgh-region contractor Brayman Construction. At roughly $1 billion, it’s the single largest award in the authority’s court-mandated Clean Water Plan.
What the Ohio River Tunnel contract covers
The job runs about 4.9 miles of deep rock tunnel, with a main bore more than 18 feet across carrying combined sewer overflow toward ALCOSAN’s Woods Run treatment plant. It also includes drop shafts, regulator structures, and near-surface diversion works along the river. Lane, the U.S. arm of Italy’s Webuild, leads project management and the main tunnel-boring operation. Brayman handles shaft construction and heavy civil work close to the surface.
Why a deep tunnel, and why now
Combined sewers spill raw wastewater into rivers whenever heavy rain overwhelms them, and Pittsburgh’s three-river confluence has sat under a federal consent decree to fix that for years. The tunnel is sized to swallow wet-weather flow that today reaches the Ohio, cutting overflow volumes sharply once it’s running. Washington and Cleveland already went this route. Now it’s Pittsburgh’s turn.
You can read the full project details on the Exchange Ohio River Tunnel listing. Expect the award to ripple through the regional heavy-civil market, where a job this size ties up tunneling crews and equipment for years.