In a major step forward, workers this week received the go-ahead to begin re-entering the shuttered Clearwater tunnel for the first time since a July 9 underground breach temporarily trapped several workers , halting the ambitious project to install new regional wastewater pipes.

Small teams — fewer than a dozen at a time — are now going in from the tunnel’s above-ground entry point to the north, near the Wilmington/Carson border, said Michael Chee, spokesperson for the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts. As for now, he added in a Thursday, Dec. 11, phone interview, the project itself will remain on hold until much more information can be gleaned.

Cal/OSHA, the agency with the authority to allow the Sanitation Districts and its contractors permission to re-enter the tunnel since t

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