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City crews check the damage on the Trans-Canada Highway from a reported water main break in Calgary on Wednesday.Todd Korol/The Globe and Mail
Calgarians have missed the mark in the latest round of water rationing, as work to fix a pipe that supplies Alberta’s largest city with the majority of its treated water continues.
Sue Henry, chief of Calgary’s Emergency Management Agency, says the goal is to keep daily water usage less than 485 million litres until the Bearspaw South Feeder Main, which broke on Dec. 30, is fixed.
But she says Calgarians used 493 million litres of water on Friday, and there’s concern that taps will keep running.
“We are trending towards the red,” she said during a Saturday news conference.
“We know that Monday will be a big day with people returning to work and to school. We are worried about this.”
She urged Calgarians to change their daily routines by showering for three minutes instead of 10, flushing only when necessary and running dishwashers and laundry with full loads until the water main is fixed.
“There is power in one minute. Just cutting one minute off of your shower saves up to eight litres of water.”
She said using water above sustainable levels risks taking water away from life-saving services, such as fire response.
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Firefighters at the side of a flooded highway in a supplied photo, as the broken Bearspaw South Feeder Main spews water in Calgary on Tuesday.Ian Royer/The Canadian Press
This is the second time within a year and a half that a section of the Bearspaw South Feeder Main, which supplies 60 per cent of the treated water for the city of 1.6 million people, has burst.
The last rupture in the summer of 2024 prompted months of water restrictions, advisories and the invocation of a state of emergency.
Later in the emergency, residents who didn’t follow guidelines were slapped with fines.
Calgary Mayor Jeromy Farkas says a second rupture is a sign that the pipe is a ticking time bomb and ultimately needs a full overhaul to meet the water needs of the city’s ballooning population.
He blamed previous municipal governments for the twice-broken pipe and promised that the ruptures end with his council.
“Our council is united,” he said.
“We will spare no expense to fix this. Not just for today, not just for tomorrow, but for the next hundred years. Under our council term, we will fix this. And we will fix this for good.”
Farkas said a panel tasked with reviewing Calgary’s water infrastructure after the 2024 water main break is to present its findings and recommendations on Jan. 13. The report was set to be released later this year but Farkas has said he ordered that it be made available sooner.
And he guaranteed Calgarians will hear full details of that report.
“We are absolutely committed to giving Calgarians … the good, the bad and the ugly. If there are hard truths in that report, you will hear them.”
He said the city is deeply engaged with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and the federal government amid the ongoing repairs.
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Alberta Premier Danielle Smith in Calgary in December.Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press
Smith said Friday she would look into whether more oversight is needed for municipal water systems.
“When we put dollars now into municipal infrastructure, we have oversight,” she said, noting the province already oversees other utilities like electricity or gas.
She has said Calgary’s latest water woes stem from neglect from when Opposition NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi was the city’s mayor.
Nenshi, who was mayor from 2010 to 2021 before becoming NDP leader, responded saying inspections were always done and that there were no major water main breaks in the city in the 20 years before the 2024 failure.
He called Smith’s accusation “total garbage.”
During the Saturday news conference, Michael Thompson, general manager of infrastructure services, showed images of the 2024 rupture and the recent break.
He said it was clear that the two breaks are different and their causes remain unclear.
“The current break runs horizontally along the pipe from the middle,” he said.
“You can see that the break appears to be very clean, and almost like a zipper that opened up the pipe.”
He said crews are working around the clock and are aiming to fix the water main by mid-January.
