Calgary’s water restrictions could last 3 to 5 more weeks as crews find more problems with broken water main
City officials said at a press conference Friday afternoon that five further locations require repair along a water feeder main that supplies over half of Calgary’s drinking water. The additional breaks mean repairs could take another three to five weeks.
Sue Henry, Calgary Emergency Management Agency (CEMA) chief, called the situation “the most dramatic and traumatic break of the feeder main they have ever seen.”
“The pipe is not safe to bring into service without these repairs,” Henry said.
“Our only choice is to stay the course with our current water restrictions for three to five weeks further.”
The additional breaks were discovered after a robot was sent into the feeder main to assess roughly 300 metres of the pipe. The robot uses sensors to collect data that show problems with the integrity of the pipe.
The robot found five “hotspots” where significant breakage had occurred in the pre-stressed steel wires used to reinforce the concrete pipe.
Not Somalia? Calgary, Alberta, CANADA! Critical infrastructure failing at half life expectancy? Half life! WTF! Calgarians have got every right to be very angry and should be. They deserve answers. Procurement process? Lowest bidder? Cheapest, poorer quality product? I’ve got another legitimate question. Where was this garbage pipe manufactured? Pure speculation but nobody should be surprised at all if that answer is China. We get most everything else from China from our life sustaining pharmaceuticals to our life ending fentanyl so why not water pipe? It’s worth finding out. Manufacturer aside, how much more Canadian infrastructure is in the same sorry state as this Calgary water line? After Calgary, a question that literally no one can answer. Here’s a hint….
In 2019 according to the ‘Canadian Infrastructure Report Card’ on this issue alone. “30 percent of water infrastructure (such as water and sewers) are in fair, poor or very poor condition”.
Calgary’s ‘half life’ water pipe disaster wouldn’t even have been included in this 30%. There is every reason to (and no reason not to) consider the distinct possibility Calgary public’s water emergency is a ‘Canary in the coalmine” for Canada. Calgarians need to know exactly how/why this portion of their critical infrastructure failed. As Jack’s intro to his site today points out, “Everything happens for a reason”. Indeed it does. But not just Calgary, Canada needs to find out.
I digress for a moment, Winnipeg, also a so-called 21st century Canadian city. But because of an antiquated system still dumps 10’s of millions of litres of raw sewage (59.6M litres during a single rain storm) into its Red River is a many year long ecological disaster. Yes, they are trying to fix it. Still. But to date failed efforts have proven to be a massive government management failure, an ongoing ecological disaster. But wait, its not just about one city and one river. The Red River’s polluted water flows directly into Lake Winnipeg, the 3rd largest fresh water lake contained entirely inside Canada and the 11th largest fresh water lake in the world. It then drains northward into the Nelson River which forms part of the Hudson Bay watershed, which is one of the largest drainage basins in the world. Sharing the ‘wealth’ takes on an entirely new meaning.
Yet what are our ‘betters’ focused on? Reducing carbon, politically defined as death for humanity but defined by the National Geographic Society as an element that is essential to all life on earth. It’s time we demanded the elected serve the electors and shift focus onto genuine pollution reduction.
Well said, sir!