Why a Giant Machine Is Digging a Tunnel Under D.C.

July 3, 2014 -- A colossal machine called the "Lady Bird" is boring a huge tunnel under Washington, D.C., to channel storm water for treatment, keeping runoff out of the city's notoriously polluted rivers. The $30 million machine is named for Lady Bird Johnson, who, as First Lady of the United States, had advocated for cleaner rivers around the nation's capital. To learn more about the "Lady Bird" and the tunnel it's digging, click here.

Deep below the nation's capital, massive tunnels are being built to save Washington's rivers—the Potomac and the Anacostia—from severe water pollution.

To get to where one of the tunnels is currently being dug, you must take a metal cage elevator 100 feet (30 meters) below the Blue Plains water treatment plant in southwestern D.C. The concrete-lined shaft is dry now, but eventually storm water will rush through.

At the bottom, visitors board a maintenance vehicle. The truck-size transport slides along train tracks for half an hour. Belts, wires, and tubes dangle into the tunnel. Visitors are asked to keep hands and feet inside the moving transport at all times.

It's hot, dark, and slightly musty, with sporadic lighting along the walls. Small puddles

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