Calgary on track move to Stage 1 water restrictions early next week
Officials say Calgary won’t move ahead if new problems arise
City officials confirmed Friday that Calgary is still on track to further ease outdoor water use restrictions from Stage 2 to Stage 1 early next week.
Francois Bouchart, the City of Calgary's director of capital priorities and investment, said in an update there were no new wire snaps detected as of Friday afternoon.
"We intend to monitor the pipe's performance and water demand over the weekend. We'll know by Monday whether we're ready to move to Stage 1 outdoor water restrictions," Bouchart said.
Calgary used 629 million litres of water Thursday, up from 558 million litres on Tuesday, an increase that was expected as restrictions moved from Stage 3 to Stage 2 and hot conditions prevailed in the city.
The news comes after a morning update from Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek, where she reiterated that the city is making good progress on restoring the water pressure at the Bearspaw feeder main back to normal.
"The team is forecasting that if all continues to go smoothly, and as anticipated, there may be a move towards Stage 1 restrictions early next week," Gondek said during a livestream Friday morning.
Watering schedule in place
On Thursday, Gondek announced the city would be able to ratchet its water restrictions down another notch.
The city is currently in Stage 2 outdoor water restrictions, meaning residents are now able to water their parched gardens and lawns, though with some limitations.
Under Stage 2, sprinklers, soaker hoses and in-ground sprinkling systems are allowed to be used for up to one hour only per week. As well, people are permitted to water only on certain days, depending on their address or, in the case of multi-unit buildings, their unit number.
House numbers ending with an even number can use a sprinkler Wednesday or Saturday, while house numbers ending with an odd number can use a sprinkler Thursday or Sunday.
If the city moves into Stage 1 restrictions, those limitations will be loosened slightly.
"Under Stage 1 we'll be able to use sprinklers for up to two hours each week, again on the same set schedule," Bouchart said.
Full details of the city's outdoor watering schedule can be found here.
Under Stage 2 restrictions, there are some instances when people can use outdoor watering without following the city's schedule. Those include watering with a hose that has a trigger spray nozzle or drip irrigation, hand watering using a watering can or other container, watering new grass with a sprinkler or irrigation system, and water use for pesticide or fertilizer application.
Some activities remain banned, including outdoor washing of cars, windows, exterior building surfaces, sidewalks, driveways or walkways. Filling fountains or other decorative features, except bird baths, is not permitted.
Professional window washers, however, are able to resume their work.
People who violate the restrictions face fines starting at $600.
Why has it taken so long to ease restrictions?
Tricia Stadnyk, Canada Research Chair in hydrologic modelling and professor with the University of Calgary's Schulich School of Engineering, tells CBC News that the city has fared well overall in gradually increasing water flow to the Bearspaw feeder main.
Stadnyk likens the key feeder main break to a broken bone. Although the section of the pipe that was catastrophically damaged has been repaired, there are still several areas elsewhere along the pipe that are stressed and require careful attention.
"Unlike our bodies, pipes don't heal themselves," she said. "And so I think the fear was that if we increase the water flow in the pipe, then added pressure to the pipe, some other areas that had maybe been weakened originally by the catastrophic failure — almost like a chain reaction — would then also fail, and the city would be right back to Square 1, where they would have new sites, new hot spots that they would have to dig up."
The vulnerability of our water supply
Stadnyk says the situation Calgary found itself in last month should be a wake-up call for other municipalities to stop neglecting the maintenance of their water distribution infrastructure.
"This has really highlighted for most Calgarians, and really, people across Canada, the vulnerability of our water supply.
"The reality is … engineers have been warning for a period of time that catastrophic failures are likely to occur because of the fact that the infrastructure is aging," she said. "I don't think we expected it in the city of Calgary where the infrastructure is among the youngest of all of Canada's. But it happened here."
Stadnyk adds the city is doing the best it can with the resources it has. However, she's calling on officials to adopt a proactive approach to keeping water distribution infrastructure healthy — even at a cost and an inconvenience to the public — rather than waiting for things to break and being forced to react.
"Nobody wanted to see the catastrophic failure and emergency repairs. We would have much rather seen a timed repair schedule."
She says she would like to see a "report card" of sorts to evaluate the integrity of water pipes across the city — not only to inform the next steps Calgary should take to prevent something like a key feeder main break from happening again, but also to inform other jurisdictions in Canada how they can avoid water pipe catastrophes in the future.
"We need to get some sort of eyes under the ground, so to speak, in terms of what's going on," Stadnyk said. "We might have planned to have this infrastructure at a 100-year design life, but we've seen that even with that plan, there's obviously significant risk still there. We do know that this particular pipe is prone to failing starting in and around 50 years [of its] life."
With files from Joel Dryden and Joey Chini