Further repairs are needed on Bearspaw’s damaged water main and on August 26, the City of Calgary will return to Stage 4 outdoor water restrictions.
This is the latest update from Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek and Michael Thompson, GM of Infrastructure Services, on Wednesday afternoon, after daily updates were suspended last Friday until this week.
Last week, the City of Calgary decided to shut down the third water pump, which they had been slowly bringing back into service since the June 5 outage and subsequent repairs, due to the number of cable breaks they had heard since they had increased the pressure again.
This limited Calgary’s maximum water capacity to 70 percent, but was not enough to lift further restrictions.
This new development comes after the City of Calgary discovered there are several other problems within the Bearspaw water supply line using the PipeDiver tool. The PipeDiver scanned the 10.4 kilometres of the supply line from the inside.
The city received data from PipeDiver on July 26, which revealed that more work is needed in over a dozen areas.
Repair work will begin on August 28. Restrictions will begin before then. Immediate repair work is expected to last until the end of September.
“We can confirm that, similar to the hotspots we discovered during the original water main burst in June, there are currently 16 additional locations that require short-term attention,” said Mayor Gondek.
“To be clear, none of these locations are at risk of pipe rupture. Rather, there are enough weak points or stresses in these sections that maintenance work must be completed before the end of September. This is not an emergency situation like the one we faced in June. This is planned maintenance work based on the PipeDiver findings.”
Restrictions and repairs
Mayor Gondek said this means the City of Calgary and its surrounding partners will have to re-implement Stage 4 outdoor water restrictions starting August 26. They will also ask people to reduce their indoor water use by 25 per cent. This is the result of the Bearspaw water main being shut down to make the repairs.
The repairs will impact businesses and residents in the communities of Bowness and Montgomery.
“I know this is not the news we all wanted to hear. At the same time, I am grateful that we have this important information that will allow us to act to protect our water system from potential outages for everyone in the Calgary region, especially residents and businesses in Bowness and Montgomery,” said Mayor Gondek.
“I understand how much this is impacting your lives, and I know we are asking a lot of you. Please be assured that in addition to these repairs, we will continue to do everything we can to improve the stability and safety of our city’s water supply.”
Calgary and the neighbouring communities that use the water – Airdrie, Strathmore, Chestermere and Tsuut’ina Nation – will rely on the Glenmore Water Treatment Plant until repairs are completed.
GM Thompson said the news means residents and businesses will be encouraged to conserve water indoors.
“Businesses use water in different ways, so we will ask them to find ways to reduce their daily water consumption by 25 percent starting August 26 and for the duration of the closure,” he said.
“Unlike last time, we do not intend to require the closure of specific businesses unless absolutely necessary. We will not close indoor swimming pools, hotels or leisure centers, and we will not close arenas.”
Mayor Gondek and GM Thompson both said that once work begins, it will be done 24 hours a day, seven days a week until it is completed. Thompson said it is important to get the work done quickly, not only to limit inconvenience to citizens, but also to ensure there is enough water through the winter. The Bearspaw Water Treatment Plant gets its water from the Bow River, while the Glenmore Treatment Plant gets its water from the Elbow River.
The Elbow River’s water levels drop significantly in the winter, and the city must refill the Glenmore Reservoir with higher water levels in the summer and fall before winter arrives, Thompson said.
Cost of the original repair
Since the first pipe burst in early June, City of Calgary emergency officials say they are calculating the cost of repairing the original break and the five subsequent hotspots.
Thompson said they have now tallied the cost of the first phase of repairs, including the original rupture, repairing the hotspots, purchasing materials, planning for contingencies, improved operations at the Glenmore water treatment plant and other services such as providing non-potable water withdrawal points. They said the cost is between $20 million and $25 million.
“We will provide further information on cost estimates for the upcoming repairs as soon as they are available,” Thompson said.
Mayor Gondek said they will do their best to stay on schedule for the September repairs, but understand that the schedule may change once they start exposing the ground and taking a closer look at the pipe or other circumstances. However, this time it is planned maintenance and not responding to an emergency, and the experience they gained from the previous repairs will help them with the new ones.
“The problems we face with parts of our critical water infrastructure are frustrating, unfortunate and incredibly inconvenient, but they are fixable,” she said.
“Based on the experience we have had with this main so far, we are able to address the weak points and stress points. We are sharing our experience with other cities who are contacting us with great concern that they could find themselves in the same situation as a catastrophic rupture.”
