Narragansett Bay Commission members Vincent Mesolella and Michael Salvatore talk with former Governor J. Joseph Garrahy.

The Providence Journal / Frieda Squires

PROVIDENCE — Hundreds gathered under a tent here to celebrate the on-time, on-budget completion of the biggest public works project in state history — the tunnel and pipes and pumps designed to capture and treat sewage overflows during rain storms. No sooner had the ceremony begun, the rain started falling.

Some joked that the storm must have arrived on cue, just like the giant crane that ripped open a giant ribbon over the shaft leading to the end of the massive, 3-mile-long tunnel 300 feet underground.

The Narragansett Bay Commission dedicated the $359-million project to former Gov. J. Joseph Garrahy, who appointed the commission that led to the state takeover and restoration of Providence’s dilapidated Fields Point Sewage Treatment Facility over the last 30 years.

Garrahy was greeted with a standing ovation. Vincent J. Mesolella, chairman of the Bay Commission, said Garrahy had the vision back in the 1970s of what the Bay could and should be. And Garrahy started what resulted in an investment of $700 million to restore the system that treats the sewage for most of metropolitan Rhode Island.

Garrahy in turn praised the Bay Commission for reflecting state government at its best — efficient, transparent and successful. And he praised those who served on that early commission: Louise Durfee of Tiverton, the late U.S. Sen. John O. Pastore, former state planner Daniel Varin, former director of the state Department of Environmental Management W. Edward Wood and others.

On a lighter note, Garrahy turned to U.S. Sen. Jack Reed and said, “When Obama calls to ask you to be secretary of defense, tell him no, we need you here in Rhode Island.”

Raymond Marshall, the Bay Commission’s executive director, said the centerpiece of the project, the tunnel that stores overflows until they can be properly treated at the sewer plant, was drilled through solid rock by a machine that was 360 feet long and weighted 690 tons. For 21 months, it drilled a tunnel that is substantially deeper than the State House is tall.

The project employed 400 people. They excavated enough rock to fill 40,000 large dump trucks. Two million tons of concrete were used to line the tunnel. At one point, Marshall said, the Bay Commission was spending $2 million a week.

Mesolella joked that as a state representative, he was appointed to the little known “sewer agency” nearly 30 years ago, when he actually wanted to serve on the House Corporations Committee. He figured he was being punished for backing the wrong person for House speaker. Now, he said, he was enjoying a day he could only describe as historic.

Phil Holmes, who was a shellfisherman 19 years ago when he started campaigning for the CSO project to clean up the Bay, said the crowd gathered to celebrate what first seemed like a fairy tale. But the CSO is no fantasy, he said, it actually works. And now the state needs more money to build the next two phases.

plord@projo.com