The 12-story deep shaft is one of two recently completed as part of the RiverRenew Tunnel System project in Alexandria, Va.—a $665-million effort to remediate long-standing combined sewer overflow and improve waterways.

“I wanted to give a sense of how cavernous the space is,” says Buckley, who used a 14mm wide angle lens to “show as much of the walls as possible in the frame. I liked that you can see the rough surfaces as well as the infrastructure that draw the eyes to the sky above.”

Set to meet a state mandate to fix overflows from the city’s sewers by July 2025, the project includes a two-mile-long, 12-ft-wide tunnel designed to collect about 120 million gallons of sewage annually. A 14-ft, 8-in.-tall tunnel-boring machine began drilling this fall at a pace of about 20 ft per hour. The two shafts will be incorporated into a pumping station and screening room at the surface. A design-build joint venture of Traylor Bros. Inc. and J.F. Shea Co. developed the tunnel with support from Jacobs and Corman Kokosing Construction Co.