Calgary will reassess current water demand and its ability to meet it before making a decision Monday on easing outdoor restrictions further.

No further wire snaps have been detected in the Bearspaw feeder main, according to Francois Bouchart, director of capital priorities and investments, who delivered a video update Friday afternoon.

Calgarians are currently in Stage 3 water restrictions, with a couple of exemptions, meaning there’s still no outdoor water use through hoses or sprinklers.

“While we can provide enough water with stage three outdoor water restrictions in place, this would be harder to do in stage two,” Bouchart said.

“This is because watering with sprinklers tends to use a lot more water than other outdoor water uses, like watering by hand using a watering can.”

He said moving to Stage 2 water restrictions, which would allow residents to water using sprinklers for one hour on any day in three windows of time, and allow hoses with a spray nozzle at any time, would take considerably more water.

“On Wednesday, at the peak of the heat wave, we believe that our water demand under stage two restrictions would have been between 70 to 100 million liters higher,” Bouchart said.

“We would not been able to yet provide enough water to meet that demand.”

Bouchart said the pipe capacity remains at 50 per cent. Any time they increase the flow, they also increase the pressure in the pipe, he said.

Pipe capacity and the pressure

A third wire snap in this section of the Bearspaw feeder main was detected earlier this week. While this doesn’t mean that a break is imminent, it does show that there are stressed spots along the 11-kilometre section.

“We know that there are some spots of structural weakness within the pipe,” Bouchart said.

“We need to make sure that when we turn on additional pumps at the Bearspaw water treatment plant to add flow through the pipe, we’re doing it in a way that does not risk another break that will set back our progress.”

Bouchart said they continue to analyze the pipe for additional problems. This weekend they will assess whether they can increase pressure, or if Stage 3 restrictions needed to stay in place longer.

They will take into consideration recent wire snaps, the impact of additional pressure in the pipe and the different options for turning on more pumps at the Bearspaw water treatment plant.

“By Monday, we will be making a decision, and we’ll share more information what it means for water restrictions,” Bouchart said.

Water demand stayed relatively steady on Thursday, at 565 million litres, down slightly from Wednesday’s 567 million litres used. Calgary had been operating at a threshold number of 480 million when Stage 4 water restrictions were in place.

Calgary typically uses around 600 million-plus litres of water on a typical July day.