Repair work will continue Thursday afternoon at the site of Calgary’s water feeder main break in Bowness after two workers were injured in an overnight incident.

Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek initially delivered the news in her June 13 morning briefing on the situation and said that neither worker is in critical condition and they are receiving medical care.  At that time, work had been stopped at the site while Albert Occupational Health and Safety conducted an investigation.

“Crews instituted an immediate safety stop, and work on the pipe has been halted,” the mayor said.

“We currently have a team working with Alberta Occupational Health and Safety in that area, and we expect that repair work on the feeder main will not resume before this afternoon.”

One city worker and one contract worker were injured when a chain broke as they were using a “come along” system to install a metal collar on a new section of pipe.

“While ratcheting the come-along system, a chain broke, resulting in injuries,” said City of Calgary Occupational Health and Safety Director Chris Collier, during the afternoon briefing.

“One worker was in serious condition, non-life-threatening, and the other was in stable, non-life-threatening condition, and is now released.”

Collier said that Alberta Occupational Health and Safety, at 10:40 a.m., was satisfied that the welding work could continue.

Francois Bouchart, director of capital priorities and investment, said a full site safety review would be done before the work would resume.

“This kind of pause is standard after a serious safety incident. It allows us to take care of our people, review our safety measures, make any necessary changes and protect other workers while we finish this job,” he said.

“When a safety review is complete and we’re confident that safety issues have been addressed, we will return to our repair work. We expect to resume welding early this afternoon.”

Water conservation is a must, Mayor Gondek said

Meanwhile, Mayor Gondek said that Calgarians must be more vigilant in their water reduction. Once again, water use rose – up 9 million litres – putting the city in a critical situation once again.

“That is taking us far over the safe threshold, and our supply is lower than it has been in the past few days,” the mayor said.

“This morning, we were at a place where we really didn’t have enough of a cushion for life-saving efforts like those in hospitals or in firefighting.”

She asked Calgarians to imagine a fire truck pulling up to a home, connecting to the nearest fire hydrant only to have a trickle of water come out. She said that could be a reality if more isn’t done to conserve water. She referenced a two-alarm fire in Woodbine overnight that required 100,000 litres to extinguish. Typical fires need as much as 600,000 to 1.5 million litres, according to city officials.

“Calgarians, I need you to do more. I know that’s frustrating for you to hear, but there’s still a real threat that we could run out of water every day,” she said.

Mayor Gondek also further addressed communication and the comparisons to the 2013 flood. She said at that time there was a State of Local Emergency, and that allowed a clearer line of sight where council worked side-by-side with administration.

“So, in June 2013 , the mayor was in a better position to provide constant and clear communication from the outset,” she said.

CEMA Chief Sue Henry said there are ongoing disruptions at city facilities, including pools and at showering locations in the city. Swimming lessons are cancelled. Arenas also remained closed unless a dry pad is being used for something like ball hockey. Further, there are closures of the Bow River Pathway along with the Edworthy north parking lot.

“The opening of our city wading pools and spray parks that typically open for us on Father’s Day weekend will be postponed until after the water restrictions have been lifted,” Chief Henry said.

She also addressed Calgarians concerns about watering at golf courses and new trees. She reiterated once again that it is non-potable water, it’s not suitable for drinking and is not impacting the city’s water supply.

Status of water main repair work

Bouchart said that even though welding work had stopped after the worker incident, they continued with the line inspection using robots. They’ve now inspected more than four kilometres, which is about 80 per cent of that section of pipe.

Still, the delay will impact timelines. Earlier this week, water services director Nancy Mackay said that it would likely be mid-next week before they could take steps to restore the city’s water supply. Bouchart said they understand the need to get the fix done, but they wanted to ensure it was done safely.

“We also know that every hour counts in our response. But yes, it will impact our timelines, and we’re currently assessing what does that look like, but what we will continue to do is do the work safely,” he said.

He also added that they are continuing to investigate the cause of the feeder main blowout.

“I want to stress that it will take us time to determine the exact cause,” he said.

“We’re also going to continue to collect and analyze information to help us determine what happened to cause this failure and to establish the state of the rest of the feeder main we have moved the damaged pipe off site, and we will continue to examine it for more information.

Calgary’s Chief Administrative Officer David Duckworth acknowledged that Calgarians have questions on how this incident could have happened. Duckworth assured citizens that a thorough report would be done on what happened and what actions need to be taken to prevent it from occurring again.

“After every emergency, we conduct a thorough post-incident review to understand what happened and why and what actions we can implement in the future to improve our systems, processes and practices moving forward,” Duckworth said.

“This emergency is no different. Right now, our team, our committed teams of engineers, scientists and skills field staff, are focused on carefully restoring our complex water system.”