Major Water Main Break in Bowness Area

[btimbit]

Originally Posted by Locke

I like your suggestion of stealing water from Okotoks! Excellent suggestion!

Who wants to join the Raiding Party?!?!?



To Okotoks! For Water!!

As much as I love the plan, Okotoks has already had water restrictions for decades until a new intake from closer to Calgary is built. Can't draw from the Sheep river anymore, gotta go to the Bow

[Locke]

Originally Posted by btimbit

As much as I love the plan, Okotoks has already had water restrictions for decades until a new intake from closer to Calgary is built. Can't draw from the Sheep river anymore, gotta go to the Bow

So you're saying no 'War Party' then?

Ugh...but I already bought the sandwiches and the caterers were really enthused.

[btimbit]

For everyone talking about shutting down businesses, I'm sure they will if it comes to that. But I don't blame them for attempting to do this with the least amount of economic impact first, especially since the vast majority of usage is residential

Originally Posted by BlackArcher101

Best comparison would be to other towns/cities in Alberta with the same climate and ground issues. I was working with Okotoks nearly 10 years ago as they recognized the same problem and put a lot of work into tracking, pinpointing and repairing leaks. They took it seriously.

Oh, missed this earlier, but I guess see above

Originally Posted by btimbit

As much as I love the plan, Okotoks has already had water restrictions for decades until a new intake from closer to Calgary is built. Can't draw from the Sheep river anymore, gotta go to the Bow

Okotoks has an intake shortage, so for them it makes sense to save every drop. For Calgary, we're not low on water, just what we can treat with a major line out of service. For most municipalities, it comes down to "Why spend a few billion on repairs just to save a few million in waste" So they attack the major ones.

I'm sure there will be pressure to change that after all of this. Personally I'd spend the money on another line from Bearspaw so we're not screwed like this when we lose our only one, but I think there was already plans for that

[Ironhorse]

Originally Posted by btimbit

I'm sure there will be pressure to change that after all of this. Personally I'd spend the money on another line from Bearspaw so we're not screwed like this when we lose our only one, but I think there was already plans for that

There was. When the 2015 recession hit, City Council shot down that plan through budget cuts, with the (short sighted) thinking that Calgary had stopped growing.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by Ironhorse

There was. When the 2015 recession hit, City Council shot down that plan through budget cuts, with the (short sighted) thinking that Calgary had stopped growing.

Is that true? Wow.

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by Ironhorse

There was. When the 2015 recession hit, City Council shot down that plan through budget cuts, with the (short sighted) thinking that Calgary had stopped growing.

At least it's going to begin construction finally and hopefully operation beginning in 4 years.


https://www.calgary.ca/planning/wate...ject-home.html

[Ironhorse]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

Is that true? Wow.

https://calgaryherald.com/opinion/co...in-crisis-2029

There was a study of the need for this, and there was all kinds of planning done in the early 2010s. When hard times hit in 2015, cuts and reorganization came to city hall. It was assumed the city would stop growing — a strange conclusion, given Calgary’s long history of bouncing back after every challenge.

The project was dropped.

[timun]

That's a Don Braid opinion column; surely you know not to take that chuckle#### at face value, right...?

[Wormius]

Sorry, how does not using ice to cool down water save water?

[btimbit]

Originally Posted by Ironhorse

There was. When the 2015 recession hit, City Council shot down that plan through budget cuts, with the (short sighted) thinking that Calgary had stopped growing.

Which looks terrible given hindsight, but since it was a recession and the existing infrastructure shouldn't have failed for a few more decades, it kinda makes sense.

Plans to reboot the project started last year

[Locke]

So...this is supposed to be done by Sept. 23?

We dont have a month's worth of excess water to go daily between, what is it...480 to 505 Million Gallons?

That seems like a fairly minimal excess, and, we're had a couple serious storms, havent those helped top up ye' ol' reservoirs?

Just spray that flex-seal that Billy Mays was hocking patch 'er up and call 'er a day! Enough is enough!

[Vedder]

Originally Posted by timun

That's a Don Braid opinion column; surely you know not to take that chuckle#### at face value, right...?

What was the actual reasoning?

[Locke]

Originally Posted by timun

That's a Don Braid opinion column; surely you know not to take that chuckle#### at face value, right...?

Thanked for use of 'chuckle####' in reference. Yes.

We couldn't even waterboard him if we wanted to at the moment.

A shame.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Locke

So...this is supposed to be done by Sept. 23?

We dont have a month's worth of excess water to go daily between, what is it...480 to 505 Million Gallons?

That seems like a fairly minimal excess, and, we're had a couple serious storms, havent those helped top up ye' ol' reservoirs?

Just spray that flex-seal that Billy Mays was hocking patch 'er up and call 'er a day! Enough is enough!

So trying to figure out how big our reservoir system is. I found this comment in June

Mackay said the city is now relying on one plant to produce water. The plant can produce 520 million litres of water a day, she said, but Friday’s demand was about 610 million litres.

Normally, the city stores up to two days’ worth of water in its reservoir system. She said everyone needs to do their part to ensure the demand does not exceed the supply.

So two days of supply would be somewhere between 1 and 1.4 billion litres.

https://calgary.citynews.ca/2024/06/...ving%20Calgary.

[curves2000]

Originally Posted by Wormius

Sorry, how does not using ice to cool down water save water?

A lot of people and businesses will run the tap to bring in cooler water. If you already have water in the fridge, than you don't need ice to cool it.

On the flip side, restaurants will fill up their ice wells with a lot of ice for the day but a lot of that ends up melting and going down the drain. It would be advisable for filling up the ice well as needed in smaller amounts and then using excess ice at the end of the night to fill up water jugs, which then turns into water available for the next day.

A lot of places will also bring fresh glasses of water/drink or pop for every refill, while dumping the older ice and needing to re-wash a glass. This processes is literally being repeated hundreds of thousands of times a week.

Also given that a reduced ice use results in less ice being made, a lot of places right now might be able to get through the week with the existing reserves in the machine that stay cool.

Shrewd operators may be running an efficient model like I have described as everything costs money like ice, dishwasher chemicals, water, added labour, straws, garbage bags, lemon/limes etc

[DeluxeMoustache]

Originally Posted by GGG

So trying to figure out how big our reservoir system is. I found this comment in June



So two days of supply would be somewhere between 1 and 1.4 billion litres.

https://calgary.citynews.ca/2024/06/...ving%20Calgary.

The article to which you had linked was from June

Here is a plot of recent water demand




The article you had referenced had someone quoted as saying that the Glenmore plant could produce 520 million L.

Things I have seen online show that Bearspaw has capacity of 550 and Glenmore had initial capacity of 400 but may be up to 550. I believe it was part of a 7 year upgrade program started in 2011

https://www.water-technology.net/pro...lenmorecanada/

Bearspaw has six clarifiers installed with a total capacity of 586,000m³/d. Glenmore was equipped in two phases, the first installing four units with a capacity of 400,000m³/d, followed by two more to bring this up to an eventual 550,000m³/d. These systems, which are part of the new pre-treatment facilities, will effectively remove turbidity and organics prior to the filtration process.

The construction update

https://newsroom.calgary.ca/update-s...e-water-usage/

Construction update

Construction continues progressing well and we remain on schedule.

On sites 1-4, which are located on 33rd Avenue N.W. and at Shouldice Park, we are now entering the final stages of repair activities on these four sites.

We have now poured concrete at nine of the 12 repair segments and concrete pouring is anticipated today at the remaining three repair segments, completing this stage of the repair.

Backfill activities are anticipated to begin today along 33rd Avenue.

Excavation activities continue at Site 5, which is the final site on 33 Avenue located at 33 Avenue N.W. at 86th Street. It is anticipated that two of the three excavations at this site will be completed today.

Excavation work at sites 6 to 8 on 16th Avenue N.W. has commenced at five of the six segments.

We have completed two of these excavations and three are currently underway.

Rebar materials are anticipated to arrive and be installed at two sites today, and concrete pouring at these two sites is anticipated for early next week.

At any rate, a comment on the demand.

If the plant can produce 500 million litres, and we are consuming that, looks like we should be ok.

If the above post is correct that there is about a 2 day supply, or a billion litres stored, then consuming 50 million litres above capacity may technically be sustainable for up to about 3 weeks, which puts the city past the projected completion date. And they claim to be on schedule


Also I saw that they are going to be turning off showers at rinks

[GGG]

Yeah wasnt using that to reference water demand. Was looking for what the system should have had for stored water at the start of the process.

With Calgary being basically 15 million over the supply number that gives a good buffer if the capacity is 100 million. 50 over gets a little scary.

[Titan2]

too lazy to bo back to the okokotksiskkdis ocmments but it must be nice to be able to use the taxes of the people that use the infrastructure on a daily basis to provide infrastrure for those people. (Can't find my glasses)

Without sarcasm: we have too many leaches come into the city use our stuff and leave without paying for it.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Titan2

too lazy to bo back to the okokotksiskkdis ocmments but it must be nice to be able to use the taxes of the people that use the infrastructure on a daily basis to provide infrastrure for those people. (Can't find my glasses)

Without sarcasm: we have too many leaches come into the city use our stuff and leave without paying for it.

Calgary is more likely the leaches. We have far larger corporate tax base to pay for things. Corporations that folks from Airdrie and Okotoks work at.

In addition water is funded by rate payers not property taxes so the leach question doesn’t apply in this case.

[Bunk]

There were endless discussions at council in the last two rounds of new community growth decisions specifically on North Water Servicing Option and the projected 2029 timeline to dovetail with growth. What is he even talking about?

For Braid to suggest no one has ever even heard of this is utterly ridiculous.