MamaJo is a tunnel system built to help clean the city's rivers. Derived from taking the first two letters from Fort Wayne’s three rivers, the Ma from Marys, Ma from Maumee and Jo from Joseph, MamaJo seems only fitting for a project that’s had an engineer's working title of the Three Rivers Protection and Overflow Reduction Tunnel (3RPORT). And so MamaJo becomes the protector of our rivers.
Mining lore says that as far back as the 1500s, workers prayed to Saint Barbara for protection while working in the dark underground. Since then it’s been tradition to name the tunnel boring machine. More at MamaJo at the City of Fort Wayne.
See our Three Rivers page. The City of Fort Wayne Tunnel Program FAQS states: Fort Wayne is under a federal court order to greatly reduce the amount of combined sewage going into our rivers each year, to reduce sewage that backs up into homes during wet weather events, to eliminate discharges from sanitary sewers and to enhance the sewer system’s reliability through ongoing operation and maintenance, repair, rehabilitation and replacement. Fort Wayne negotiated with the US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA), the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) and the United States Department of Justice for more than ten years before an agreement was reached in late 2007 that governs how City Utilities will reduce discharges from the combined sewer system into our rivers during wet weather. The agreement – incorporated into a federal Consent Decree that is enforced by a federal court – is a result of the Clean Water Act. See the Fort Wayne City Utilities MamaJo page: https://utilities.cityoffortwayne.org/mamajoupdate/.
It’s part of an 18-year, $240 million effort to reduce the number of combined sewer overflows into Fort Wayne’s three rivers – the St. Joseph, St. Marys and the Maumee – from an average of 76 overflows per year to four. The St. Joseph is the first watershed that will reach compliance with the consent decree, Wirtz [Matthew Wirtz, City Utilities deputy director] said. Overflows occur when high water volumes, such as what might occur during heavy rainfall, back up the city’s combined sewer system, causing it to alleviate the pressure by discharging into the rivers. The St. Joseph River typically overflows 12 to 15 times a year, causing sewers to dump 9 million gallons of wastewater into the river. Through some earlier sewer separation projects, City Utilities has been able to decrease that amount to about 5 million gallons per year. "All those overflows (on the St. Joseph River) will be reduced to one or less in a typical year," Wirtz said. He said this portion of the project will be completed four years ahead of schedule and is expected to come in significantly under budget. Once the project is complete, it’s expected to discharge only about half a million gallons into the river in a typical year – a 97 percent decrease from the current overflow levels. Copied from Watershed year for St. Joe River Will achieve compliance with 2008 decree next year by Dave Gong published December 25, 2014 in The Journal Gazette newspaper.
CONTINUING COVERAGE - After taking you underground for the start of construction on the Deep Rock Tunnel, we get a look at the drill that did the work before it's disassembled.
Slowly, but surely, progress is being made on the drilling of Fort Wayne's Deep Rock Tunnel. It's the project that should reduce flooding and overflow into the city's rivers. WANE 15's Chris Darby WANE 15 and Taylor Williams WANE 15 gives us our first look inside the tunnel.
Today, Mayor Tom Henry joined Woodhurst neighborhood residents and City Utilities to break ground on construction of the final neighborhood pipe of the Deep Rock Tunnel project.
Today, Mayor Sharon Tucker, Fort Wayne City Utilities, and community leaders celebrated that the Deep Rock Tunnel Project, our city’s largest infrastructure project, is now in operation.
