Calgary has remained under the 500 million litre limit for five consecutive days, according to the latest update on Bearspaw feeder main replacement work.

Water utility Chief Operating Officer Michael Thompson and Mayor Jeromy Farkas updated the public on Monday and thanked Calgarians for their water-saving efforts.

They also provided an update on where work is currently, with crews shutting down and draining the existing Bearspaw South feeder main and preparing construction sites for the remaining work.

“That has included closing valves to isolate the feeder main, setting up work areas, and traffic detours, hydrovac work, and cutting and removing asphalt to prepare for excavation,” said Thompson.

He said that the draining should be completed today, and crews have been excavating two of the three segment locations. There was a setback at the third section of the feeder main, with a valve issue that needed to be fixed at the Parkdale site over the weekend.

“The team worked over the weekend to rectify the issue, and I’m happy to report that the draining for the third section should be completed today,” Thompson said.

“This means excavation along Parkdale Boulevard did not start as much as we wanted over the weekend, but we anticipate it will be full bore today.”

Thompson said he didn’t believe that the weekend issue would delay the overall schedule but was an example of hiccups that come up during the work.

Crews will continue to prep the sites, and Thompson said that work will be starting 24 hours a day, seven days a week at the 89 Street NW location to connect the feeder main. The work should take two weeks, he said.

Leak detected in the northwest

Thompson also noted a leak detected on a feeder main at Edgemont Drive near Edgemont Boulevard NW – unrelated to work on the Bearspaw feeder main. Workers have developed a plan to repair that feeder main, with it being out of service at some point this week.

“While the Edgemont feeder main is out of service, the overall water system will have less redundancy, and we will be at a greater risk of being unable to move water should another issue arise,” he said.

“This is a complication, but at the moment we do not anticipate any widespread impacts. This is an example of why it is so important that for the next three and a half weeks, we stay in the green zone with our water usage. We never know when we will experience a problem in the system, and staying in the green zone allows us the ability to deal with any other issues as they arise.”

Mayor Farkas also thanked Calgarians and citizens in neighbouring communities for their help in curbing water use.

“We know that we can do this. We’ve done harder things. We’ve done it before, and we will do it again,” he said.

“So please continue to watch your water use one last time until the conclusion of this project.”

Thompson said that they initially pegged the work at four weeks, and while they’re just starting the work, they don’t have a precise end date in mind.

“What will happen once we’re done this work is we will turn on the original Bearspaw South feeder main again. We’ll pull ourselves out of restrictions, use that pipe to flow water while we commission the exist or the new pipe, and then mid-December we’ll transition over to that new pipe,” he said.

“So, we’re about three and a half weeks of water restrictions left if everything goes well, and then mid-December we should have that new pipe operational, and we’ll all be happy going into the new year.”