The City of Calgary believes that it will have to go in and make multiple additional repairs to the Bearspaw feeder main as it accelerates plans for a replacement.

City officials provided an update at a technical briefing on New Year’s Day 2026, saying that they’ve been pumping out water (dewatering) from the site and the pipe so they can complete excavation around the pipe.

This activity comes roughly 36 hours after the Bearspaw South feeder main, which first ruptured in 2024, causing months of water restrictions and rationing, blew once again along 16 Avenue NW.

“We’ve pumped down. We’ve got a clear view of the actual damaged area of the pipe. We’ve started to excavate towards the joint one direction, and we’re moving towards the other direction, and we should have three segments of pipe exposed, hopefully by the end of today,” said Chris Huston with water services at the City of Calgary.

“At that point, we’ll have a condition assessment done. So, folks will come in, look at the pipe inside and outside, and give us a clear picture of what we need to do to do the repair. So, whether we’re replacing one segment, two segments, or three segments of pipe, and then we will start to cut out the pipe.”

Huston said that their target repair time is two weeks from the time of the break. If there are more repairs identified on the line, it may extend the overall repair timeline.

Once the broken pipe piece is removed, they will use a robotic crawler, as they did in 2024, to inspect the rest of the pipe to get them an internal view of what’s happening with the troubled feeder main.

“Again, this is our goal, to have it back in service in two weeks. There’s lots of other factors that could change that timeline, but that’s our… it’s a realistic goal. It’s not totally optimistic,” he said.

After that, the new pipe will be installed and welded into place. Then, they’ll have to fill the main and test the water to make sure it’s safe to consume.

The fix in 2024 was complete in 13 days, according to Huston.

The replacement is on the way

Michael Thompson, General Manager of Infrastructure Services with the City of Calgary, told reporters that even though 23 hotspots on the Bearspaw South feeder main were repaired in 2024, there were 239 deteriorated pipe sections out of the ~2000, four-metre-long pipe segments.

“It’s important to remember or to recognize that the feeder main still contains segments with minor to moderate structural deterioration,” he said.

“We understood the pipe would need to continue operating in its current condition, while we developed a plan for a long-term replacement. We knew that the pipe was operating with wire breaks, and we were monitoring it, prepared to take and make additional repairs if we started to see the condition of the pipe change.”

The need for a new feeder main pushes forward plans for the Bearspaw South feeder main improvement project, Thompson said. This is a six-kilometre section of redundant pipe that will be built in two phases: One from the Shaganappi pump station to the Sarcee Trail interchange, and the other from the Sarcee interchange to the Bow River. Designs are already in the works and construction is set to start in 2025.

“We were already moving this project forward on an accelerated schedule, but given the events of this week, we will be doing everything that we can to accelerate this project even more,” Thompson said.

To prepare for any post-2024 disruptions on the Bearspaw South feeder main, Thompson said they had stockpiled other steel pipes so they could make emergency repairs quickly.

Other water projects are also underway, with the 22-kilometre North Calgary water servicing project and the 25-kilometre South Calgary water servicing project.

Calgary Mayor Jeromy Farkas said that the Bearspaw feeder main is a critical link in the city’s water supply.

“The hard truth is this: It has reached the end of its reliable life. We can keep patching it, we can keep reacting, but it will continue to fail until there is an alternative built. No amount of short-term fixes will change that,” Farkas told reporters.

“So, the responsible choice, the only choice, the only path forward, is to build a new artery to strengthen the heart of our system so that Calgary can rely on it, not just today, but for generations to come.”

Farkas said they would get it built faster than anything the city has done before.

Meanwhile, Thompson said he expects they’ll learn of new spots that will require repairs in the interim.

“We’re likely going to need to go in and make more repairs on this pipe so that we can work to keep it in service until that new one is constructed,” he said.

“We’re not sure what those look like yet, and we’ve got a team working on that right now.”

Plea for water reduction

A boil water advisory remains in effect for the Point McKay, Montgomery and Parkdale, and West Hillhurst areas of Calgary.

Stage 4 water restrictions also remain in effect, prohibiting the use of water for outdoor rinks, snowmaking, and other large outdoor water usage. Indoor facilities are being asked to implement their water reduction plans.

According to Thompson, roughly 80 million litres of water were lost in the system with the Dec. 30 Bearspaw feeder main break.

Typically, there are 600 million litres of water stored in underground reservoirs, and it dropped to 459 million litres, Thompson said.

“That is one of the main reasons, and it is the main reason we are asking all Calgarians, businesses and ourselves, to reduce water consumption while we do these urgent repairs to the feeder main and we work to get it back into service,” he said.

Huston said that a winter break of this magnitude that takes such a critical water link offline could have other impacts if water consumption isn’t reduced.

In the summer, water levels in the rivers and the Glenmore Reservoir are generally higher.

“When we’re relying heavily on the Glenmore water treatment plant to supply water for the city, it’s drawing water from the Glenmore Reservoir, which gets its water from the Elbow River,” he said.  

“So, the Elbow River flows are probably the lowest they’re going to be at this time of year, which means, if this continues for a long period of time, that reservoir gets drained and it doesn’t recover. So, that’s a pretty significant challenge that we wouldn’t necessarily have in the summer.”

According to Nicole Newton with the City of Calgary, there hasn’t been a measurable reduction in demand since the break happened. The target is 485 million litres of demand per day, which allows storage reservoirs to be replenished.

“People seem to be continuing on their day-to-day patterns,” she said.

Huston said the typically low-flow faucet runs between six and eight litres per minute. Reducing shower time to three minutes in a home could have a big impact on available water, he said.

Along with that, the City is asking Calgarians and residents in Airdrie, Chestermere, Tsuut’ina Nation, and Strathmore to flush toilets only when necessary, and run dishwashers and laundry loads only when full.