Landon from Littleton writes, “What’s driving you crazy? Hey Jayson. Driving to the mountains this winter I’ve noticed a bunch of ice coming through the walls of the westbound Eisenhower tunnel. This weekend a new icicle was coming through the ceiling. I don’t remember this in past winters, and it doesn’t appear to be an issue in the eastbound tunnel. Wanted to know if you had any insight with the wall ice.”
The Eisenhower Johnson Memorial Tunnel (EJMT) is truly an engineering marvel, but with any tunnel that cuts through solid ground, it is susceptible to water intrusion. The ice you saw inside the tunnel is not a new challenge for the tunnel maintenance crew. It is one of the unique challenges of managing a complex structure that is more than 50 years old.
Groundwater seeps through the walls of the tunnel throughout the year. In the summer, you will see wet areas on the roadway and on the walls, but in the winter, ice mounds form when that groundwater permeates the tunnel. There is a plenum liner — a structural liner within the tunnel walls in both tunnel bores — that is designed to mitigate water intrusion within the tunnel especially during the freeze and thaw cycles. The Colorado Department of Transportation told me, its maintenance crews are vigilant when it comes to removing the ice buildups inside both tunnels and continuously monitor where the ice forms.
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Early every morning during the freeze season, a tunnel maintenance crew will conduct 15-minute traffic holds so they can get in each tunnel and scrape off the ice from the roadways, from the walls and remove any icicles that have formed on the ceiling. Then, CDOT tunnel operations center employees monitor the cameras inside the tunnels looking for the formation of any icicles or large patches of ice that form throughout the day. I’m told the ice has been especially problematic during the very cold temperatures this area has experienced lately. CDOT said if a potentially hazardous icicle is identified, the agency dispatches maintenance crews to remove it immediately.
CDOT started a project in June of 2023, designed to address this ice build-up issue inside the tunnel. The Plenum Liner Repair Project was supposed to reduce the amount of water infiltration the EJMT experiences, especially in the winter. A grout injection was used to fill the cracks where that groundwater is penetrating into the plenum liner and eventually leaking through the walls and on the roadway. While CDOT said that project would mitigate the ice issue, crews are now seeing water move differently around and within the liner creating ice build-ups in different locations than before.
“To better understand how the ice formation this year differs from past years, CDOT’s tunnels team is planning a project that would remove some of the wall panels in the tunnels so that crews can investigate and determine the appropriate permanent repairs," Stacia Sellers with CDOT told me. "We anticipate this project coming online in the coming weeks, and motorists should anticipate an extended closure of the eastbound bore for a day so crews can remove the panels. Work is then anticipated to require a single lane weekday closure after the panels are removed.”
That work will become part of this overall $71 million repair project that should, CDOT hopes, address the water issue on a longer-term basis but will also address different areas in need of repair and rehabilitation in the tunnels. The project is anticipated to conclude this fall.
Sellers told me, the tunnel recently had a full inspection to confirm its structural integrity, and crews conduct daily inspections to determine if there are any issues that could impact traffic, and to remove ice build-up in real time.
“Keeping the tunnels in good working condition is a priority for CDOT as it is a lifeline for Colorado’s economy and communities along the Western Slope,” Sellers said.
By the way, for every hour that Interstate 70 is closed, the state’s economy takes about a $1.6 million hit. In 2021, CDOT identified $150 million worth of repairs needed to be made to the tunnel.
Denver7 Traffic Expert Jayson Luber says he has been covering Denver-metro traffic since Ben-Hur was driving a chariot. (We believe the actual number is over 25 years.) He's obsessed with letting viewers know what's happening on their drive and the best way to avoid the problems that spring up. Follow him on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram or listen to his award winning Driving You Crazy podcast on any podcast app including iTunes, iHeartRadio, Spotify, Podbean, or YouTube.
