Calgary is working with local contractors to open two locations for construction companies to draw non-potable river water so they can continue their work.

The temporary plan to allow for commercial construction and landscaping activities to continue during Calgary’s ongoing water conservation was delivered during Thursday’s update on the water main repair situation.

The companies eligible to access the water include contractors working on City of Calgary and regional water partner capital projects, contractors with active development permits, commercial landscaping companies and bulk water station users.

The plan was made possible as the province signed off on the extraordinary use due to the current water situation in Calgary.

One site is at the West Baker Park boat launch (open today) and the Ogden boat launch location, which will open tomorrow.

“This temporary service is free of charge and will be the responsibility of the end user to ensure that the water is appropriate for its intended application,” said Calgary Emergency Management Agency Deputy Chief Coby Duerr.

Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek said that construction needs to keep pace with the number of people who are moving to the city.

“This was something that we needed to do to keep the construction schedule on track,” she said.

“We know there are a lot of folks out there who are building homes, and we are in a situation in Calgary where we are seeing about 96,000 people having moved to our region last year and to keep pace with those folks needing places to live, construction needs to keep pace.”

Tempering expectations on repair timeline

Earlier in the day, in her morning update, Mayor Gondek said the July 5 timeline set out the day prior was a best-case scenario. She said that unforeseen challenges could come up that puts pressure on that timeline. The mayor said there are a lot of different phases that the city has to work through, including backfilling the site, water testing paving and more.

“I need to caution that we have to be prepared that a potential site may require a bit more repair than we had expected, or that water line flushing is going to take a little bit more time,” she said.

“I want you all to be prepared for these changes to the schedule as we continue to learn more about the progress that we’re making.”

Infrastructure Services GM Michael Thompson described a situation where one of the hotspots was located on an elevation change in the pipe.

“This created a problem for the crews as the segment of the damaged pipe cannot be removed without risk of damaging the adjacent pipe. Yesterday, our team determined there’s too much risk to cut out this damaged section of the pipe,” Thompson said.

“Instead of cutting out the damaged section of pipe, we’re going to structurally reinforce this segment of pipe. Prior to this discovery, a contingency plan had been developed for this scenario, and yesterday, we enacted this contingency plan. Until we’ve completed the removal stage, we continue to run the risk of finding something new and unexpected.”

Thompson also fielded questions on the viability of the 5,000 kilometres of pipelines under the City of Calgary’s care, and whether Calgarians should be worried about the 90 per cent that have been rated good or very good.  The City hadn’t detected any issues with the Bearspaw feeder main before, despite the addition of an acoustical monitoring system earlier this year.

He said they were focused on the repair of the current five hot spots and would examine their asset management more closely once those were fixed.

Thompson did say, however, that there is only 10 kilometres of pipe of this particular specification. A complete inspection of this area was planned for the fall, he said.

“As we look at our entire asset management plan, like I said, we take a risk-based approach, and obviously, when we do our review, we’ll be reviewing this incident and applying it to how we do our asset management across the entire network,” Thompson said.

Calgary used 454 million litres, making it a five-day streak of staying below the critical threshold of 480 million litres of water.