Drilling under Tauranga Habour has begun as construction on the Southern Pipeline reaches a milestone.
The drilling will take place between Matapihi and Memorial Park, where works have been held for several months already.
Tauranga City Council project manager Steve Wiggill said the wastewater pipeline project was tracking on time and to budget.
"We're on track for completion in December as scheduled. The noisiest part of the project is complete, and we want to thank the community for being patient during this time. We've been working closely with residents who live close to the site and listening to their feedback to ensure we minimise disruption as much as possible while this important work is completed."
Work to drive large outer steel casing sleeves into the harbour bed finished this week at Memorial Park, with the driving work at Matapihi finishing several weeks ago. This was the noisiest part of the project.
Drilling has now started at Matapihi to create a route across to Memorial Park, 35 metres underneath the harbour bed. This is done using a method called Horizontal Directional Drilling which is the least invasive for the environment. Drilling will continue for around four weeks.