John Holland has been awarded a contract by The Melbourne Water Corporation for the replacement of the Melbourne Main Sewer, originally built in the 1890s. The exisiting Melbourne Main Sewer collects waste water from central Melbourne, Docklands, Port Melbourne and South Melbourne.

John Holland will be responsible for the construction of a new 2.3 kilometre underground sewer. The new sewer will run from Docklands, near the Charles Grimes Bridge, where it will connect into the existing Melbourne Main Sewer, through to Swallow Street in Port Melbourne where it will connect to the Hobsons Bay Main Sewer.

To construct the new sewer, six major access sites of up to 15 metres deep, will be dug along the corridor to connect approximately 2.5 kilometres of new branch and reticulation sewers. The access sites will allow a specifically designed earth pressure balance tunnel boring machine, and pipe jacking methods to be used to excavate and construct the new sewer.

Upon completion, the new sewer will have a 1.8 metre diameter, comprise 2,214 metres of main sewer pipeline and will serve to meet the growing commercial and residential capacity demands in the CBD and the Docklands precinct.