Calgarians can’t water their lawns or spend more than three minutes in the shower.But contractors and construction companies will still be able to pour cement to keep the city’s housing boom going without slowing down.Starting Thursday, they’ll be able to pull non-potable water straight from the river to do things like mix cement and landscape yards — for free — after deciding permission from the Alberta government to do so. But it’s still illegal for ordinary citizens to draw their own H2O from the Bow.And Mayor Jyoti Gondek said there are no plans to put the brakes on Calgary’s blanket rezoning to slow construction, now or into the future. The latter point is prescient, given that most of the redevelopment will occur in older neighbourhoods like Bowness, where the water main breaks occurred.In response to a question from The Western Standard, the mayor was terse.“The decision that we made as a council (to approve rezoning) was to ensure that we have options for housing and increased affordability and access to housing and all neighbourhoods throughout our city. And with that type of work. Whenever it comes to redevelopment we are absolutely looking at infrastructure investments as well.”.When pressed further, Gondek was unapologetic for maintaining a blistering construction pace given that nearly 60% of all new arrivals to Alberta are coming to Calgary.“Speaking directly to the question of having permission from the provincial government to use non-potable water to draw water from the river for construction purposes, this was something that we needed to do to keep the construction schedule on track. We know there are a lot of folks out there who are building homes and we are in situation in Calgary where we are seeing the 96,000 people having moved to our region last year and to keep pace with those folks need places to live,” she said.“Construction needs to keep pace and the growth strategy that the city of Calgary has implemented that has been endorsed by city council, excuse me recognizes that we have to have not only housing, but also the important infrastructure that goes with it, and we continue to make investments in that regard.”.Meanwhile, the city insists it had no inkling that the water main would fail despite the fact cities like Denver ripped out their own mainlines after catastrophic failures dating back as far as 1997.The National Research Council flagged the issue in a report to Canadian municipalities in 2008.But infrastructure manager Michael Thompson said the particular section of line had been considered to be in "good’" to "very good"’ condition using a risk assessment model. External acoustic sensors hadn’t detected any abnormalities — sounds of breaking wire — but the city has now partnered with an oilfield service provider to conduct in-pipe monitoring.The entire line had been scheduled for a full inspection later this fall, he added.“We do have acoustic monitoring in a number of locations across the city. We have recently installed the acoustical monitor on this specific pipe this spring, and it hadn't picked up any sounds until we actually had the pipe incident… it had not picked up anything.“Even though the city claims with 98% certainty the rest of the network is safe, Thompson still couldn’t provide guarantees that more weaknesses won’t be uncovered during a third party review, or even what the costs to complete the current repairs will be.“As we look at our entire asset management plan, like I said, we take a risk based approach and obviously when we do a review, we'll be reviewing this incident and applying it to how we do our asset management across the city.”
Calgarians can’t water their lawns or spend more than three minutes in the shower.But contractors and construction companies will still be able to pour cement to keep the city’s housing boom going without slowing down.Starting Thursday, they’ll be able to pull non-potable water straight from the river to do things like mix cement and landscape yards — for free — after deciding permission from the Alberta government to do so. But it’s still illegal for ordinary citizens to draw their own H2O from the Bow.And Mayor Jyoti Gondek said there are no plans to put the brakes on Calgary’s blanket rezoning to slow construction, now or into the future. The latter point is prescient, given that most of the redevelopment will occur in older neighbourhoods like Bowness, where the water main breaks occurred.In response to a question from The Western Standard, the mayor was terse.“The decision that we made as a council (to approve rezoning) was to ensure that we have options for housing and increased affordability and access to housing and all neighbourhoods throughout our city. And with that type of work. Whenever it comes to redevelopment we are absolutely looking at infrastructure investments as well.”.When pressed further, Gondek was unapologetic for maintaining a blistering construction pace given that nearly 60% of all new arrivals to Alberta are coming to Calgary.“Speaking directly to the question of having permission from the provincial government to use non-potable water to draw water from the river for construction purposes, this was something that we needed to do to keep the construction schedule on track. We know there are a lot of folks out there who are building homes and we are in situation in Calgary where we are seeing the 96,000 people having moved to our region last year and to keep pace with those folks need places to live,” she said.“Construction needs to keep pace and the growth strategy that the city of Calgary has implemented that has been endorsed by city council, excuse me recognizes that we have to have not only housing, but also the important infrastructure that goes with it, and we continue to make investments in that regard.”.Meanwhile, the city insists it had no inkling that the water main would fail despite the fact cities like Denver ripped out their own mainlines after catastrophic failures dating back as far as 1997.The National Research Council flagged the issue in a report to Canadian municipalities in 2008.But infrastructure manager Michael Thompson said the particular section of line had been considered to be in "good’" to "very good"’ condition using a risk assessment model. External acoustic sensors hadn’t detected any abnormalities — sounds of breaking wire — but the city has now partnered with an oilfield service provider to conduct in-pipe monitoring.The entire line had been scheduled for a full inspection later this fall, he added.“We do have acoustic monitoring in a number of locations across the city. We have recently installed the acoustical monitor on this specific pipe this spring, and it hadn't picked up any sounds until we actually had the pipe incident… it had not picked up anything.“Even though the city claims with 98% certainty the rest of the network is safe, Thompson still couldn’t provide guarantees that more weaknesses won’t be uncovered during a third party review, or even what the costs to complete the current repairs will be.“As we look at our entire asset management plan, like I said, we take a risk based approach and obviously when we do a review, we'll be reviewing this incident and applying it to how we do our asset management across the city.”
