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Dyn-o-mite! Months Of Explosions Ahead As Part Of Albany Park Tunnel Work

By Patty Wetli | May 24, 2016 5:32am | Updated on May 25, 2016 8:09am
 Explosives will be used every other day during the months it will take to blast the shafts for the Albany Park Stormwater Diversion Tunnel.
Explosives will be used every other day during the months it will take to blast the shafts for the Albany Park Stormwater Diversion Tunnel.
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LINCOLN SQUARE — Sunday's official groundbreaking on the long-awaited Albany Park Stormwater Diversion Tunnel — designed to alleviate flooding in Albany Park and North Park — was a relatively quiet affair.

Excavation of the tunnel's shafts will be anything but.

Construction of the tunnel's inlet and outlet shafts will require a steady series of explosions, over the course of several months, in order to blast through bedrock.

Neighbors can expect a detonation approximately every other day — weekdays and daytime hours only, one explosion per occurrence — as crews create the 150-foot-deep shafts.

The blasts sound like fireworks and cause noticeable vibrations, according to engineers with the Chicago Department of Transportation.

Folks in the vicinity of the outlet shaft, in River Park near Foster Avenue and the Chicago River, will experience the booms first, from August through October.

Excavation will then shift to the inlet shaft, near Foster and Springfield avenues. Explosions there — on the same every-other-day schedule — will last from November through December.

Community meetings will be held before blasting commences, according to the Mayor's Office.

Properties within 500 feet of the explosions will be surveyed and monitored for damage from the rattling.

Once the shafts are built, construction will largely move underground — presumably out of sight and out of earshot.

The entire project is expected to wrap up in spring 2018. A section of River Park, being used as a construction staging site, will remain closed throughout the process.

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