Major Water Main Break in Bowness Area

[Ironhorse]

[topfiverecords]

Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan

I’m not sure I get how it makes sense to ask residential water users to stop showering and washing dishes but restaurants (which HAVE to wash dishes, constantly) are allowed to stay open. How can a restaurant or coffee shop even curtail water use? I’m sure there’s a way, but it’s not occurring to me right now.

Full disclosure: I’m not an early riser so got the alert BEFORE showering. Keep your distance.

You want businesses to take a financial hit, and employees to lose wages so you can shower?

[PsYcNeT]

It's the DEI hires apparently.



IdPol but for civil infrastructure.

What in the hell is "convenient" about this. I can't believe we share a city with these rubes.

[_Q_]

Originally Posted by Ironhorse

More like

South Calgary: We have all your water bitches! Now fight me for it!

[Nyah]

Originally Posted by puffnstuff

we did cut off the water to airdrie first, right?

Haha

https://twitter.com/user/status/1798741465633325082

[Raekwon]

Originally Posted by Nyah

Haha

https://twitter.com/user/status/1798741465633325082

Too late we filled up the water tower as soon as we learned of the break. It may just be for show and filled with lead but we have water.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by Flabbibulin

I wish the alert would have specified if whore baths were allowed

I'm shocked and appalled that the thread had gone on this long without this important question being answered.

[TrentCrimmIndependent]

Originally Posted by mikephoen

I got the alert about 6:30. Scared the heck out of my dogs. And I was hoping to sleep in today.

Boy I'm glad I had my phone in a different room last night.

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by topfiverecords

You want businesses to take a financial hit, and employees to lose wages so you can shower?

Not what I said at all…. More just saying that if it’s really an emergency that requires city-wide curtailment, asking some but not all users to reduce their usage seems a bit like trying to bail out your boat with a colander.

I’m not necessarily criticizing the policy either—I’m not informed enough to do that, and am glad I don’t have to make those decisions. Just wondering what a non-mandatory request to only some water users to curtail their usage actually achieves in the grand scheme of things, and am happy to be corrected if I’m wrong.

With that said, if the actual rationale for treating businesses differently is “they will lose money” then it seems to me we either don’t have a real water crisis or we have no idea how to prioritize things in an emergency.

[TrentCrimmIndependent]

Grab some buckets or load up your truck bed with a reservoir and head down to shouldice. Get the water you're owed. Leave none alive.

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by Ironhorse

already done in this thread, bro.

[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by Nyah

Haha

https://twitter.com/user/status/1798741465633325082

Airdrie has also issued a full fire ban to prevent the potential to need water to fight fire.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan

I’m not sure I get how it makes sense to ask residential water users to stop showering and washing dishes but restaurants (which HAVE to wash dishes, constantly) are allowed to stay open. How can a restaurant or coffee shop even curtail water use? I’m sure there’s a way, but it’s not occurring to me right now.

Full disclosure: I’m not an early riser so got the alert BEFORE showering. Keep your distance.

It's a fair question, but ultimately citizens are the end consumer in most cases.

A lot of car washes claim to re-use like 85% of the water, so they might not actually be that bad (but I dunno).

Otherwise if we are all mindful and make sure the water we use is actually essential, it can probably be a pretty big reduction.

[Cappy]

Originally Posted by fotze2

Man, if one of my lines failed and impacted this many people I’d go to jail. Why the hell do we allow this. This line would score pretty damn high on the old risk matrix on the consequence side. Imagine if this was a gas line? CEO would be lynched. But it’s water so whatevs.

No you wouldn't. Remember Lac Megantic?

[Lubicon]

Originally Posted by Hot_Flatus

I literally got out of the shower to see the alert, so yeah, all the thousands of people that get to work at 7:30 or earlier likely went about their business as normal.

Same. Luckily (for today) we are all showered up for the day before seeing the reports and the alert.

Originally Posted by timun

I know enough about the line in question to know that it's a biiiiig ####ing feeder main; several feet in diameter. I didn't know it had been leaking since last night...

IIRC a new feeder line was just constructed very recently. Wondering if this is the same one?

Originally Posted by puffnstuff

In amongst all the mixed messaging from the City and the Ab emergency tweets has anyone mentioned a timeline on how long they expect the repair to take?

Last I had heard (a few hours now) the source/location of the leak had not been found yet. Still not enough information to know the scope of repair required and how long it may take.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by fotze2

And the AER would crucify you with this thinking. It would not be a low. Financial impact is huge. Tough to quantify but huge. It’s no one’s fault other than budgeting. We had a failure due to gravity. Didn’t impact anyone, just a fart of gas before esds kicked in. We now do geotechnical assessments of any line in a slope, drone mapping, depth of cover. Pinned to the wall because of a design flaw 40 years ago. Pipe fails and the entire city gets emergency texts, that keeps me up at night if I was the person responsible.2 not a chance 2.

This pipeline isn’t governed by the AER so the regulatory risk is low.

I’m half joking but water lines just don’t carry the same risk that a gas line does. The fact you have ESDs on the gas line really shows the difference.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan

Not what I said at all…. More just saying that if it’s really an emergency that requires city-wide curtailment, asking some but not all users to reduce their usage seems a bit like trying to bail out your boat with a colander.

I’m not necessarily criticizing the policy either—I’m not informed enough to do that, and am glad I don’t have to make those decisions. Just wondering what a non-mandatory request to only some water users to curtail their usage actually achieves in the grand scheme of things, and am happy to be corrected if I’m wrong.

With that said, if the actual rationale for treating businesses differently is “they will lose money” then it seems to me we either don’t have a real water crisis or we have no idea how to prioritize things in an emergency.

Restaurant dishwasher units are often self contained reusing the water with filtration. Same as things like car washes.

In general we are in the early stages of ban outdoor and ask nicely. It worked for power in the winter.

[Hot_Flatus]

Originally Posted by powderjunkie

It's a fair question, but ultimately citizens are the end consumer in most cases.

A lot of car washes claim to re-use like 85% of the water, so they might not actually be that bad (but I dunno).

Otherwise if we are all mindful and make sure the water we use is actually essential, it can probably be a pretty big reduction.

This is in the same sphere as the power grid warnings last year. Residents can all do their part, but in reality it's the businesses and and large centre's around the city that ultimately need to move the needle.

Joe blow cutting off his 5 minute shower or not running the dishwasher is like adding a tear drop to a swimming pool. Even if an entire community did so you're likely not even make a tangible difference when you're talking about tens of thousands (if not hundreds) of gallons of water be used by large consumers today.

[mrkajz44]

Originally Posted by Hot_Flatus

This is in the same sphere as the power grid warnings last year. Residents can all do their part, but in reality it's the businesses and and large centre's around the city that ultimately need to move the needle.

Joe blow cutting off his 5 minute shower or not running the dishwasher is like adding a tear drop to a swimming pool. Even if an entire community did so you're likely not even make a tangible difference when you're talking about tens of thousands (if not hundreds) of gallons of water be used by large consumers today.

These arguments are always such cop outs - you see them everywhere. My individual contribution is nothing; this is someone else's problem (especially prevalent for environmental things).

Most systems are designed to run at near capacity, like the electrical grid or the cities supply of water. They are running close to 100% all the time - so when something like this happens we don't need to stop all water usage, but everyone saving 50-100 L of water this morning by not showering and avoiding dishwashers / washing machines x 100,000 households is actual a pretty significant number and enough to bring the demand down below 100% again, even with reduced supply.

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by mrkajz44

These arguments are always such cop outs - you see them everywhere. My individual contribution is nothing; this is someone else's problem (especially prevalent for environmental things).

Most systems are designed to run at near capacity, like the electrical grid or the cities supply of water. They are running close to 100% all the time - so when something like this happens we don't need to stop all water usage, but everyone saving 50-100 L of water this morning by not showering and avoiding dishwashers / washing machines x 100,000 households is actual a pretty significant number and enough to bring the demand down below 100% again, even with reduced supply.

Yeah this always reads as an excuse for selfish behavior.

It's obvious this is a minor crisis situation; social responsibility is accepting some very small inconvenience while it's addressed.