Road repairs along 16 Avenue NW are underway as the City of Calgary continues to make progress on the reintroduction of water service on the Bearspaw South feeder main.

Officials provided another update on Saturday afternoon, once again encouraging Calgarians to drop their water consumption as the final stages are completed and the feeder main is brought back online.

Refilling of the Bearspaw line has begun, a process that will take several days, according to Infrastructure Services GM Michael Thompson.

“First, it requires a lot of water. Seven kilometers of pipe (are being) emptied and refilling. It takes approximately 22 million liters, or the equivalent of nine Olympic swimming pools full of water,” he said.

“The water we are using to refill the pipe comes from the Bearspaw water plant and the Bow River.”

The water isn’t being taken from the Glenmore Reservoir plant because they don’t want it to impact the amount of water consumed in the city each day.

Once it’s refilled, testing of the water will begin. That involves Alberta Health Services and Alberta Environment and Protected Areas, Thompson said.

“From there, we will stabilize the system, turning on pumps at the Bearspaw plant, which will increase pressure in the feeder main and start water flowing through our water system,” he said.

“When that is complete and after the water system is stable, we will begin the process to ease out of water conservation.”

This is the part, however, that carries additional risk, Thompson said.

“The schedule can be impacted as we pause to make sure everything is proceeding as per plan, or, more severely, if we see another break in the pipe, “ he said.

“As I’ve said before, we cannot guarantee that we will not have another break in the pipe.”

New reality, says Mayor Farkas

Calgary Mayor Jeromy Farkas said that the water saving measures and dealing with potential pipe breaks is something that Calgarians will need to become accustomed to in the short-to-medium term.

Particularly as repair work is done, or another break is

“I want to be crystal clear and transparent with Calgarians that this is the new reality that we’re facing with more proactive measures in the fall and the spring to bring this pipe offline, that will require more water conservation measures at that time, and there is no guarantee that next week, next month or next year, that this pipe will not continue to break,” he said.

Water saving still remains an important part of this, as the City of Calgary closes up the final repairs on the Bearspaw South feeder main. On Friday, 504 million litres were used, still 19 million litres more than the sustainable 485 million litre target.

Calgary Emergency Management Agency Chief Sue Henry reiterated that they want Calgarians to save between 20 and 30 litres per day through fewer flushes, shorter showers and running full loads of the dishwasher and in doing laundry.

“This may seem like small everyday actions, and they are, but when 1.7 million people do them, the impact is incredible,” she said.

“Every litre saved helps keep water available for our homes, for our hospitals and for emergency response, like firefighting.”

It’s expected that the full system will be back online in the early half of next week. Road repairs will continue through the weekend and into next week.

Barring setbacks, the City of Calgary said that the road should reopen to traffic mid to late next week.