HARTFORD — The Metropolitan District Commission’s four-mile long tunnel that’s 200 feet underneath Hartford and West Hartford is on track to start operating in 2026, but hinges on the completion of a $114 million pump station. The tunnel, which will hold excess water during storms before releasing it to the treatment center, began construction in 2018 and is now finished. But before it can do what MDC wants it to do, work needs to finish on a new pump station on Brainard Road in Hartford that will operate the tunnel. Nick Salemi, MDC’s communications and public relations manager, said the tunnel — which he said is the first of its kind in the state — is one way to accomplish their Clean Water Project goal. “The whole project is to eliminate combined sewer overflows,” Salemi said. “There’s different techniques to do it. One is digging in the street — where in Hartford and all the older cities have one pipe that has stormwater and wastewater. You dig up the ground and you replace one pipe with two. Another way is this tunnel method.”

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