Major Water Main Break in Bowness Area

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Amethyst

Water restrictions over as of 10am today.

Alright!! Round 2 for this bad boy!!

Originally Posted by Locke

[fotze2]

Man I was scared we’d run out of water. I just want to commend our leaders for fataing up but then saving us from ourselves. We are just the worst aren’t we.

[Wormius]

I , for one, am relieved that the insufferable comments on any news or posts released from the City will at least not have to do with showers or watering lawns.

[powderjunkie]

My [stupid and useless] lawn is the same luscious green as it was the day the restrictions ended last time. Never watering again.

[btimbit]

I wonder what the next thing will be that people will pretend to be outraged about that doesn't actually affect their life at all

[GGG]

Originally Posted by btimbit

I wonder what the next thing will be that people will pretend to be outraged about that doesn't actually affect their life at all

I’m going with next springs water restrictions. There is no way these aren’t the only areas that need fixing in this system. We are going to have a 10 year period of various replace or repair projects on this piping.

[btimbit]

Originally Posted by GGG

I’m going with next springs water restrictions. There is no way these aren’t the only areas that need fixing in this system. We are going to have a 10 year period of various replace or repair projects on this piping.

Thanks Obama!

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by GGG

I’m going with next springs water restrictions. There is no way these aren’t the only areas that need fixing in this system. We are going to have a 10 year period of various replace or repair projects on this piping.

I agree that's almost 100% certain, but I wonder how many of the other fixes are places that are single points of failure. Most of the mains are regional in nature not "the majority of this treatment plant goes through here" which makes the consequences of taking them out of service quite a bit less.

[MoneyGuy]

I never water and my lawn is beautiful. It’s a waste of water. In a drought, it’s not great but it springs back fast with rain.

[RichieRich]

At the time of purchase the pipe was the greatest thing ever... but fast forward not-even-that-many-years and the precast concrete piping system had started to fail in a number of American cities leading to some court cases.

Fast forward and not super surprising (I hate to say it) that the Calgary lines, now at ~50yrs, had started to fail catastrophically. Reading through some of the history the risks were registered and gradually increased over the years. Various Calgary managements and political leaders chose to ignore these requests for funding and to do something about it.

Within a week or two of the major failure earlier this year the City had actually posted for an experienced piping/pipeline engineer. Sadly we laughed about that at work. It was quite obvious that an professional engineering audit was required. And here we are (apologies if this may have been posted during one of the many prior pages...):

https://www.apega.ca/news/2024/07/30...r-main-failure

https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/engineeri...reak-1.6983260

I'm looking forward to reading the report and the details of how the risks were assessed, when, the decisions, how often it came up, why it was deemed acceptable to push it another year (after year after year), etc..

[Wormius]

I am kind of curious, even if the City was totally proactive, wouldn’t the end result of having to shut down that water main for repair and implement water restrictions be the same? I didn’t get the outrage and how we should have done something sooner. Like, would people not have been equally unhappy if the exact same measures were done sometime in the past?

[RichieRich]

I am kind of curious, even if the City was totally proactive, wouldn’t the end result of having to shut down that water main for repair and implement water restrictions be the same? I didn’t get the outrage and how we should have done something sooner. Like, would people not have been equally unhappy if the exact same measures were done sometime in the past?

=====================

Taken in isolation your comment is valid IMO - the bigger picture is that there was no secondary plan for water supply lines. Meaning one and only one large pipeline from the NW into nearly-central Calgary that then was distributed back out. Instead of multiple headers from source that could be operated independently.



What could have been done sooner? Hindsight is awesome... that would have included (perhaps) additional piping lines; a proper pipeline integrity program; better isolation points; planned outages instead of reactionary; outages at "better" times of the year (ie spring or early fall, such as now).

[GGG]

I disagree with saying we needed more lines. We just handled a significant loss with an acceptable level of consequence. From a investment vs risk standpoint this was a reasonable outcome.

We will see what the integrity program looked like in the follow up investigation so I will withhold judgement there.

The big change would have been probably doing all of the work done now as (the first 5 and latest 10?) all as one down time period.

[Amethyst]

Originally Posted by GGG

I disagree with saying we needed more lines. We just handled a significant loss with an acceptable level of consequence. From a investment vs risk standpoint this was a reasonable outcome.

We will see what the integrity program looked like in the follow up investigation so I will withhold judgement there.

The big change would have been probably doing all of the work done now as (the first 5 and latest 10?) all as one down time period.

It was only acceptable because of luck. The reason they did it now was because going into the winter, Glenmore would not have been able to provide for the city. So if the timing of the break had been different, the consequences would have been a lot more serious.

Having one line that can stop the whole system with a backup that isn't always available is not acceptable, IMO.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by GGG

I disagree with saying we needed more lines. We just handled a significant loss with an acceptable level of consequence. From a investment vs risk standpoint this was a reasonable outcome.

We will see what the integrity program looked like in the follow up investigation so I will withhold judgement there.

The big change would have been probably doing all of the work done now as (the first 5 and latest 10?) all as one down time period.

The thing we don't really know is how close we were to catastrophe...like if we couldn't get that section of pipe from San Diego, what was Plan B and how long would it take?

Or what if a section bursts under the river? Presumably a much slower fix.

Moving forward, we also can't count on the same voluntary response from individuals that we got the first time. We just saw the difference the second time. I still wonder if the difference there was that they topped up all of the reservoirs in the first few days of restrictions. What if the next break happens in the midst of a heat wave and the fluctuating reservoirs are at a lower level at the time of the break?

[Reggie28]

Originally Posted by powderjunkie

The thing we don't really know is how close we were to catastrophe...like if we couldn't get that section of pipe from San Diego, what was Plan B and how long would it take?

Or what if a section bursts under the river? Presumably a much slower fix.

Moving forward, we also can't count on the same voluntary response from individuals that we got the first time. We just saw the difference the second time. I still wonder if the difference there was that they topped up all of the reservoirs in the first few days of restrictions. What if the next break happens in the midst of a heat wave and the fluctuating reservoirs are at a lower level at the time of the break?

Cut off Airdrie.

[puffnstuff]

Originally Posted by Reggie28

Cut off Airdrie.

That should be plan A. Those parasites.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by powderjunkie

The thing we don't really know is how close we were to catastrophe...like if we couldn't get that section of pipe from San Diego, what was Plan B and how long would it take?

Or what if a section bursts under the river? Presumably a much slower fix.

Moving forward, we also can't count on the same voluntary response from individuals that we got the first time. We just saw the difference the second time. I still wonder if the difference there was that they topped up all of the reservoirs in the first few days of restrictions. What if the next break happens in the midst of a heat wave and the fluctuating reservoirs are at a lower level at the time of the break?

I’d disagree with your assessment that people were less compliant this time.

In June we ran 450-480. In August we ran 480-500 but lots more indoor services were left on. The city reacted less severely and so did people.

As to what would happen if we needed to cut more? People would cut more. People are quite resilient when faced with adversity.

I hope there investigation includes the effectiveness of the emergency response plan or lack there of so we can read the details of how they assessed this type of risk and the consequence of a break in the conditions you describe.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by GGG

I’d disagree with your assessment that people were less compliant this time.

In June we ran 450-480. In August we ran 480-500 but lots more indoor services were left on. The city reacted less severely and so did people.

As to what would happen if we needed to cut more? People would cut more. People are quite resilient when faced with adversity.

I hope there investigation includes the effectiveness of the emergency response plan or lack there of so we can read the details of how they assessed this type of risk and the consequence of a break in the conditions you describe.

Perhaps, but the city seemed to be hoping for more (less) out of people. You're right that there were more steps they could take if necessary.

Ultimately the new north then east pipe they have planned seems sensible and is likely sufficient

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by Amethyst

It was only acceptable because of luck. The reason they did it now was because going into the winter, Glenmore would not have been able to provide for the city. So if the timing of the break had been different, the consequences would have been a lot more serious.

Having one line that can stop the whole system with a backup that isn't always available is not acceptable, IMO.

There's that, but city hall was screwed either way. IMO this was the better outcome for them.

Pre-emptive and people complain it's a waste of money for something that isn't potentially imminent (designed for 100 years, replace at 50. Waste of money).

But with the failure, the optics made more sense and more people are likely to be willing to accept the repair, inconvenience, timing and future proactive work.