Water conservation in Calgary is still required, as consumption levels are steadily rising to the threshold needed to maintain adequate water supply across the city.

Meanwhile, City officials said that there was no indication this particular section of pipe was stressed before the June 5 break.

Mayor Jyoti Gondek said that citizens still need to take action to ensure that they’re able to replenish storage reservoirs in 23 locations across Calgary. Calgary is one week into water conservation and outdoor watering restrictions after the Bearspaw south water feeder main break in the Bowness / Montgomery area, near Shouldice Park.

“I’m going to be really clear on the call to action today. We, you and I, need to keep reducing our water usage,” the mayor said Wednesday.

“While we came in at the threshold today of 480 million liters of water used, we can see that water usage is creeping up.”

The mayor said that last Saturday, only 440 million litres were used. Calgary water consumption has jumped up nearly 10 per cent since then to around 480 million litres on Tuesday.

“You can see that there’s a slow creep up, and that’s not great,” Mayor Gondek said.  

“While we are staying under the threshold that is critical to ensure that we have enough water for all of us, this gradual increase is certainly becoming a concern. Please remember that this situation is impacting all of us.”

Calgary Emergency Management Agency Chief Sue Henry reinforced the Mayor’s message that Calgarians still need to take water-saving measures as the repair process continues.

“Today, our call is to please double down on any water conservation methods that you are currently using. Even those small things add up,” Henry said.

Henry also noted that there’s an area of Shouldice Park near the water main break, that has been damaged. City crews are assessing the damage in an area roped off. There’s damage to sports fields, pathways and roadways in the area.

Repair work continues

Water services director Nancy Mackay said that teams are continuing to assess an extensive internal inspection of 1.8 kilometres of pipe around the Bowness break. 

The new section of pipe was disinfected this morning before being lowered into place.

“The big job now for our team is to get that pipe into place. There’s a large metal ring that will go around the new pipe, connecting it to the existing one on both ends, and that’s going to be welded into the evening,” she said.

Francois Bouchart, director of Capital Priorities and Investment, said that there was no indication that the section of pipe in the June 5 incident was stressed. The pipe was 49 years old in its expected 100-year lifespan.

“Our regular modeling of the pipe, incorporating risk factors like age, pipe material operating pressures, did not give any indication that a physical condition inspection was required. The feeder main operated well within its pressure limits,” Bouchart said.

“The installation of acoustic monitoring equipment in early 2024 provided no indication that the pipe was experiencing issues.”

Bouchart said that the pipe experienced a catastrophic failure. He said that’s a failure that doesn’t evolve gradually, like a crack that slowly opens up and eventually starts showing performance issues.  In this case, he said there was a series of wires that provide strength to the pipe structure that snapped.

“Our acoustic monitoring didn’t pick up wire snaps. That would indicate that we were leading towards a catastrophic failure,” he said.

All indications are the City of Calgary is still on the path toward service restoration by mid next week.