While most Jefferson County sewer users probably know about the system’s historic bankruptcy declaration in 2011 and the annual rate increases that followed, many may be unaware of all of the factors and projects that contributed to the $3.14 billion in sewer debt the county accumulated in the late 90s and early 2000s that the system’s customers are still paying for today.

One such project, dubbed by previous county employee John Young as ‘the Tunnel to Nowhere’ was estimated by Young to have cost the county $19 million as they were first forced to leave a $3 million tunneling machine (according to Bham Wiki) underground and then forced to go back and retrieve it.

The machine first became stuck after a failed effort by the county to expand their sewer system into areas around Cahaba Heights and parts of Mountain Brook by tunneling underneath the Cahaba River beginning sometime in the early 2000s according to Bham Wiki.

This expansion aimed to help partially cover the $1.2 billion expense of a 1996 consent decree the county entered into with the U.S. Justice Department in which they agreed to update their sewer system to follow mandated Environmental Protection Agency standards and improve water quality in the Black Warrior and Cahaba River systems, according to Bham Wiki and an article published in 2011 by Jeff Hansen, a former employee of The Birmingham News.

The county was forced to abandon the expansion project in the summer of 2002 after the tunnel became unstable according to Bham Wiki and a 2012 article from New York Times reporter Mary Williams Walsh.