Disappointment, gratitude and desire for action are the range of responses from Calgary city council following the release of the Bearspaw feeder main independent review.

The panel delivered its report Wednesday morning, citing more than two decades of inadequate oversight and risk management of the Bearspaw feeder main, despite evidence that the risk had escalated.

While the report was delivered swiftly at the behest of Calgary Mayor Jeromy Farkas, who has repeatedly stated during the latest Bearspaw feeder main rupture that Calgarians are owed answers on the state of aging water infrastructure, some councillors said that the early delivery itself is a sign of poor governance.

Ward 2 Coun. Jennifer Wyness said that Calgary is already in the midst of a water emergency. The message today shouldn’t be about the results of the report. She said it’s a distraction.

“I’m frustrated as a councillor that while the pipe is still broken and still being fixed, we are being distracted by our report when Calgarians and the messaging needs to be, please conserve water,” Wyness said.

Wyness said in the middle of a water emergency they received the report at 9 p.m. Tuesday, an expected to digest the contents to ask informed questions when the panel delivered the report during a 1:30 p.m. special meeting.

“This is poor governance, and this is not what Calgarians have demanded of council,” she told reporters.

Mayor Farkas, however, thanked the panel for the delivery of the report

“It’s critical for us as a council, as a governance body, to be as transparent as possible with the public – the good, the bad, the ugly, everything that we know about this problem, we need to share with Calgarians so that we can rally together to be able to solve it,” he said.

“So, again, very pleased that the panel was able to conclude their work, especially at such a timely moment.”

Like failing to repair a faulty part in an airplane: Coun. Jamieson

Ward 12 Coun. Mike Jamieson, in a release delivered to the media on Wednesday afternoon, said the report lays bare a culture of deferral and diffused accountability that persisted for two decades.

“That culture needs to end immediately,” Coun. Jamieson wrote.

“This is a staggering failure. It is the equivalent of a plane crash caused by a faulty part, and then refusing to replace the same part on identical aircraft.”

Ward 4 Coun. DJ Kelly said he was among the only candidates during the last election campaign who outlined a water plan that would help deal with some of the city’s infrastructure challenges.

Kelly said that he’s disappointed that past councils let Calgary get to this point with critical water infrastructure. Though he acknowledged that city administration didn’t provide the oversight and reporting necessary for council to make important infrastructure decisions.

He said council for too long put the emphasis on growth and providing infrastructure to new areas rather than properly funding established areas, and were ultimately told to do more with less.

“As a result, that do-more-with-less ethos got into their culture, and they started doing that and not escalating problems as they were seeing them effectively,” Coun. Kelly said.

“Their risk tolerance was far too low, and Calgarians are now paying the price for those cultural changes over the years that slowly morphed into an organizational culture that would accept something like this.”

Ward 8 Coun. Nathaniel Schmidt said that the report highlights an infrastructure deficit in Calgary.

“My priority is to ensure that we fix and maintain the infrastructure in Ward 8 and throughout the city. This work isn’t sexy and doesn’t win elections, but we can’t afford to ignore this issue any longer,” he said.

“To build a city we are all proud of, we need solid foundations. I am going to hold administration accountable and prioritize the necessary work that must be done. Calgarians’ lives cannot be disrupted time and time again.”

Third-party spin-off of a water utility

In speaking with the media, independent panel chair Siegfried Kiefer said that while they are advising that Calgary’s water utility has its own dedicated unit, complete with its own Chief Operating Officer, they ultimately recommend the water utility be spun off as a third-party provider, like Epcor in Edmonton, or Enmax in Calgary.

“We believe that moving to a formal corporate structure wholly owned by the city entrenches those disciplines of a board with fiduciary duty to operate the utility in a responsible manner, looking after the long-term interests of the customers and the investors,” he said.  

“It entrenches that management accountability because they report to a board and have to respond to the input from the board.”

Kiefer did say that first and foremost Calgary needs to deal with the repairs and duplication of the Bearspaw line, with an eye on governance and accountability once that’s taken care of.

Coun. Kelly said that it has to happen in progression. Make pipe repairs, build the redundancy in the Bearspaw feeder main line and then take action on the governance.

“After that, we have the decision to make in front of us in terms of whether we spin it off into an external, wholly owned subsidiary using either like an Enmax-type model or a commission-type model,” he said.

“We can have that conversation at that point.”

Coun. Wyness said that she already receives criticism on how city council manages Enmax. She said have a wholly owned subsidiary would lead to increased costs for the water utility, and concerns around how taxpayers and regional partners would be compensated for investment in water infrastructure.

“There is a lot to think about and true process to go through making that actually executable and in the best interest for Calgarians,” she said.