Construction worker dies in Indianapolis tunnel

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INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — A construction worker died early Friday
while assisting on a project to build a sewer tunnel 250 feet beneath
Indianapolis, a utility company said.
Citizens Energy Group
spokesman Dan Considine said an ambulance was called to the project site
on the city’s southwest side about 3 a.m. Another company spokeswoman,
Sarah Holsapple, said it wasn’t yet clear if the worker died in an
accident or a medical event.
The man who died was William "Isaac"
Simpson, 25, who had been a laborer on the site for a little more than a
year, Holsapple said. He was employed by Shea-Kiewit JV, a contractor
on the project.
Simpson was near the end of the tunnel, about 7
miles deep from its launch shaft, in a crew working to finish the
excavation, Holsapple said.
"Our hearts go out to the worker’s family," Holsapple said in a statement.
Investigators
from the Indiana Occupational Safety and Health Administration arrived
on the scene Friday, and their investigation could last two to three
months, Holsapple said. Work on the tunnel was halted, and IOSHA will
determine when it will resume, she said.
Police also are investigating the death.
Indianapolis
media outlets reported that about eight other workers were removed from
the tunnel. Holsapple said there was no danger that the tunnel would
collapse.
Considine said the company is building an eight-mile
tunnel to store sewage until it can be treated, and to keep it from
flowing into the White River during heavy rains. The tunnel is 19 feet
in diameter and will be part of a 25-mile network of tunnels called the
Deep Tunnel Connector. Work is expected to be completed by 2025.
The
$1.6 billion, federally mandated project is designed to reduce water
pollution. Under the city’s century-old combined sewer overflow system, 5
billion gallons of untreated sewage overflowed into the city’s water
channels every year after heavy rainstorms.
Citizens Energy provides gas, water and sewer services for Indianapolis.

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