Port Mann Water Supply Tunnel Project,
Lower Mainland, BC

Client: Sandwell Engineering Inc.

Anticipating the growing demand for water in its member municipalities, the Greater Vancouver Regional District is building a new water supply tunnel to run under the Fraser River between Coquitlam and Surrey. The current tunnel (originally built in 1974) is too small to meet the future needs of the growing Lower Mainland community and is vulnerable to seismic activity. Constructing the new tunnel will involve boring a shaft for a 2 meter wide tunnel 1 km. through bedrock approximately 40 meters or more below the surface of the river.

Working for Sandwell Engineering Inc. McElhanney has been the primary survey provider on this project and has located and provided control points for test drilling holes in the Fraser River to determine the composition of the area under the riverbed.

As the project progresses, we anticipate providing topographic surveys on both sides of the tunnel site, legal and right-of-way surveys for property acquisition at the surface ends of the tunnel and gyroscopic surveys to provide locational information to the tunnel boring machines working below the surface of the Fraser River.

Once complete, this tunnel will provide more than twice the current amount of safe, high quality drinking water to the cities south of the Fraser.