Trapped Under the Sea

Some say it was because of corporate greed and others think it was because no one wanted to speak out against the proposed action or the perceived safety hazards because they had no better solution.  Wherever the blame lies, it left two men dead and several others' lives in shambles.
The Boston Harbor has been the scene of much drama throughout the history of the United States from the Boston Tea Party to the MWRA court-ordered sewage cleanup which is the focus of this book by Neil Swidey.  Mr. Swidey once again gets intimately acquainted with the subjects just as he did in his book The Assist.
The sheer immensity of building a tunnel 450 feet under the earth that extends 10 miles out under the ocean floor is incredible.  It starts out 24 feet in diameter and narrows until it is only five feet in diameter.  Add in the fact there is no electrical or oxygen supply provided as well as no place for the dangerous gases to vent increases the level of danger to the point where few places on earth are as dangerous.  Oh, when it was first built there was power, ventilation, and an oxygen supply but the powers that be determined that in order for the company that built the tunnel to be signed off all of that infrastructure had to be removed before the plugs that kept the seawater at bay in case of a shipping accident had yet to be removed.  The majority of the book deals with the process of removing those plugs, the people tasked with the removal, and the tragedy that ensued.
To say I enjoyed reading this book is probably inappropriate.  It was a gripping read that kept my interest from start to finish and the story is still lingering in my mind.