NYC Way Down Underground

Lesley Stahl Takes A Tour With Sandhogs Building $6B Water Tunnel

(CBS)  In those days, there was a cruel arithmetic: 23 men died, one for every mile of tunnel. But there hasn’t been a fatality since 1997, and "the mole" deserves most of the credit. And yet, in the weeks before our visit, one sandhog severed a thumb; another was blinded in one eye.

"People do lose appendages, you know, because they just can't be aware of everything that's moving at any given time," says Jim O'Donnell.

What about lung disease?

"Everyone gets lung disease," says Jim O'Donnell. "I mean, you’re going into an environment where dust is a byproduct of our production. … If I was to take an educated guess, I would assume we are doing damage every day we're down there."

So far, half the tunnel has been excavated, and a 13-mile stretch is already providing water to the Bronx and Upper Manhattan. The section that we were in will eventually bring water to lower Manhattan, once it meets up with the section under Central Park.

"The tunnel going in that direction will eventually meet an existing place where it's ready to be connected," says Greenberg.

How does he know? "Because the guys who do the surveying do very well," says Greenberg. "The Brooklyn/Queens Tunnel met. It was five miles and we missed by about half an inch, quarter of an inch, in fact. It was less than half an inch."

To save time, the sandhogs often end up eating their lunch right in the tunnel. And we joined them.

"I notice there aren't any female sandhogs," says Stahl, who was the only woman there.

"This is not a place for the average woman, you know," says one sandhog. They say that some women tried it out, but were unsuccessful.

"There's a lot of guys who would never do this occupation, either," says one sandhog. There's guys that have came in, got a job, got down in a cage, went in, worked a week, and quit. Said they'll never come back. So it's not so much a male and female thing. It's the nature of the work."

The sandhogs also say it's bad luck to have a woman in the tunnel.

With good luck, the whole tunnel will be completed by 2020. But when the work began back in 1970, the prediction was very different.

"The project was supposed to take, I believe, about 15 to 20 years to complete," says Greenberg. "All of the stages."

"And we're not even anywhere near to being finished with it?" asks Stahl.

"Well, a lot of things have happened since then," says Greenberg.

Some of the things that happened, like the city facing bankruptcy in the mid '70s, slowed the tunnel’s progress. But it’s on the fast track now, and yet most New Yorkers who walk above it every day don’t even know it exists.

"I know other construction workers, and they always talk with such pride about the skyscraper they put up, or they worked on the bridge," says Stahl. "You guys can never do that. I mean, you can't point to what you've done."

"When we're done, you know, manhole will cover over the shaft, and no one will ever know how that water got to their faucet," says Jim O'Donnell.

"We are the few people that understand the suffering and the loss of life that make it happen. And you do have a sense of pride about that."