'Bad break'
Calgary was blind-sided by a catastrophic water-main break on June 5, 2024. But a Mount Royal University academic says the devastating infrastructure disaster was a case of bad luck rather than poor planning.
“It’s very unfortunate. The inspection of the south feeder main started in the spring and it was planned to be complete by fall this year, but it broke in June,” says Dr. Jay Huang, PhD, an assistant professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences. “In my opinion, this water main break was an unexpected scenario but the protections are there and the city is trying its best to maintain their pipe conditions.”
Huang says it’s not the first time Calgary has grappled with a significant water fiasco.
In 2004, the McKnight feeder main broke, flooding the streets and disrupting water service to more than 100,000 people. Degradation of the pipeline’s coating and weakening steel wires that fortify the system were partially to blame.
Huang says that prompted the city to introduce a year-round proactive inspection program to identify leaks before they become catastrophic.
And it worked until that unlucky break in June.
Unlike many other Canadian cities, Huang says, Calgary has a robust program to inspect, maintain and repair its aging pipes. In part, it relies on robotic devices to search for leaks via ultrasound, which provides an acoustic signal increasing in crescendo as it approaches an area of concern.
Huang says the system to thwart failures is thorough and impressive, albeit not foolproof.
“We have to accept the truth — that there are many pipes buried in the ground that are more than 50 or 60 years old,” he says.
What lies beneath
In the ground in Calgary lies a complex water infrastructure system. The water lines bring the precious resource to homes and businesses, sanitary lines collect and deliver toilet and kitchen water to waste treatment plants and storm lines collect rainwater.
The water lines sit on top of the sanitary and storm lines and are buried at least 1.2 metres below ground. They serve a purpose pretty much unnoticed by many. Of course, that dramatically changed when streets in the city’s northwest became a rushing river. The Bearspaw South Feeder Main break cracked open pipes and Calgarians’ eyes to a system that provides everything from showers to drinking water to more than a million people.
The ongoing inconvenience of water restrictions and a relentless push by city officials to cut back on use on the homefront highlighted our constant reliance on that system.
And when city-wide restrictions were lifted, ending the crisis that stretched over much of the summer, few remained unaware anymore of the system that delivers water on demand.
Calgary’s director of capital priorities and investments, Francois Bouchart, told Calgarians in a Sept. 22 update, “I’m sure some of you have become intimately aware of terms like feeder main, pipe diver and know more about the construction of our pipes than you ever imagined.”
A lot of (literal) pressure on the system
Water travels from water treatment plants all the way to taps. The Bearspaw water treatment plant, for instance, sits at the lowest point in Calgary. From there water is sent all the way back up to the north in Rocky Ridge with the help of multiple pump stations navigating varied topography to get to destinations across the city.
The rapid pace of developments in the city adds more demand to original infrastructure, which is why the city is trying to add more pipes to the system.
It’s a lot of energy, and it’s a lot of pressure.
The more water used, the more pressure on the system, which begs for an ongoing need for conservation. Huang explains more conservative water use means less pressure exerted on the pipes, adding longevity to an already aged system.
“Water is so precious,” he says. “There is a lot of cost associated with construction, operation and maintenance and a lot of money is invested into water distribution and water treatment.”
You might not think that is top of mind for many when looking at daily demand.
“Our daily water use in Calgary is about 350 litres per day, per person. That’s a lot compared to other places in the world,” Huang says. “We are rich in water resources and have a lot of water available to use, but we need to take a step back a little bit and should be aligned with the daily average use (globally), which is about 150 litres.”
The University of Toronto's Infrastructure Institute estimates about 30 per cent of the water infrastructure nationwide is in fair, poor or very poor condition, and director Matti Siemiatycki says not investing in maintenance leaves municipalities “ripe” for catastrophic, costly failures.
Huang says that’s not the case in Calgary as investments are being made to bolster the system.
A new water servicing plan, which includes installing a new feeder main from the Bearspaw Water Treatment Plant to new communities in the city’s north all the way up to 144 Avenue NW, is currently in the design phase. When it’s introduced in stages, it will add extra capacity and make the system more resilient as early as 2027.
“Taking a look at water-main break disasters, compared to other cities, we are still doing a decent job and still investing and trying to install new water feeder mains to serve the increasing population in Calgary,” Huang says.