Repairs are complete on the Bearspaw water feeder main hot spots and backfilling has begun, leaving a proper flush and water testing left before Calgary returns to regular service.

Mayor Gondek said in the afternoon update that work at the sites had been completed on the hotspots and that backfilling of the sites would begin today (June 25) and continue into tomorrow. Officials later outlined a potential window of between six and 11 days left before regular water service could return.

“Next, the city’s water team is going to begin a four-step process. This will involve filling the pipe, flushing the pipe, it will be testing the water, and then getting to a place of stability,” the mayor said.

“If all of this goes well, the work of returning the city’s water system to regular service could be done sooner than we expected, but we’re not quite at that point yet.

Mayor Gondek, however, encouraged folks not to take the good news for granted. She equated it to playing a full 60 minutes in a hockey game, and they were now in the last five minutes of game seven and it wasn’t time to let up.

“There’s too much on the line to let up. We can’t give up on our water-saving efforts before the city’s water system is returned to regular capacity,” she said.

She reminded Calgarians that they still rely on the one water treatment plant to provide Calgary with water.

“As I said, we’re still several days away from a return to regular water flow. Until then, we’re still relying on the small, smaller facility at Glenmore to provide water throughout the city.”

Water consumption rose again to 478 million litres, up from 461 million litres on Sunday.

Mayor Gondek encouraged citizens to stay the course on water-saving measures.

“Now is not the time to fire up the sprinklers or get your car washed. We are not out of the woods,” she said.

Significant amount of risk in this phase: GM Thompson

Infrastructure Services GM Michael Thompson said that when the original pipe break happened on June 5, it created substantial depressurization and shocked the system.

“Due to the shock to the system, we know there’s a risk that we will find other issues in the pipe as we start to repressurize it,” Thompson said.

“We are managing the risk by filling the pipe slowly and carefully and slowly bringing it up to pressure. We will be using acoustic monitors to listen for indications of further breaks, as well as sensors that will detect pressure spikes. Our concern is that something will break as we begin to bring this pipe back into service.”

Francois Bouchart, director of capital investments and priorities, said that each one of the four steps carries risk and that it’s likely will be setbacks along the way. He said 4.5 kilometres of pipe need to be refilled and they’ll do this by opening valves to start the flow of water from the Bearspaw water treatment plant. Bouchart said it would take roughly 14 million litres of water to refill and it would take up to two days to complete.

“During this filling stage, the pipe will experience an increase in pressure, which increases the risk of stress and potential for the risk,” he said.

“This is not just a risk for this feeder main but it’s a typical risk for any pipe that’s being filled.”

After it’s filled and flushed, Bouchart said that water testing would be done in conjunction with Alberta Health Services. That typically takes 18 to 20 hours to complete. Once the water is deemed safe, the city will increase pressure in the system and start flowing water through the network. Bouchart said that could take between three and five days.

Costs of the repairs being tallied

Ward 1 Coun. Sonya Sharp said that there’s been an ongoing conversation on infrastructure costs since the start of the water main rupture on June 5. She said what’s important right now is that the construction stays on track so that Calgarians can have normal water service.

“I’m assuming that the cost of the whole project will come with the post-mortem and understanding the scope of work that’s happened right now,” she said.

“There’s going to be an understanding of there’s minor costs and there’s major costs and then we would have to see if there’s any sort of things that we could ask support of other levels of government.”

Mayor Gondek acknowledged that departments impacted by the feeder main break have been tracking repair-related costs and those are being collected by the Calgary Emergency Management Agency.

“As soon as those numbers are collected and collated, we will be able to share them to some degree. I don’t know when that will be though,” she said.

The mayor also said that the framework for the third-party review would be coming to the Infrastructure and Planning Committee next week. She has asked that the City of Calgary’s response and communications be included in the review.

“This independent review is critical to make us better and to offer transparency to all of you,” she said.

“If we are not prepared to learn from a crisis, we miss the opportunity to become stronger.”