Major Water Main Break in Bowness Area

[Firebot]

https://calgaryherald.com/news/jerom...er-main-fiasco

Mayor Jeromy Farkas is not happy.

He told me Wednesday afternoon he was ready to call a special meeting of council later New Year’s Eve, if Chief Administrator David Duckworth had not given him and other councillors an independent report on the 2024 Bearspaw line blowout.

“I and several councillors met with Mr. Duckworth at the emergency centre. We told him we want the report, If that doesn’t happen, there will be a special meeting.”

The official wasn’t being evasive. He was dead honest. He revealed that the monitoring system is useless and the city has no idea what’s going on down there.

In 2024, the city spent nearly $39 million to repair the main leak and 29 additional weak spots.

All was well, they said. Careful investigation showed the line was in good health.

But it was widely known that this pipe, with its complex blend of concrete and steel wire, was vulnerable to corrosion.

The city was alerted to the risk as far back as 2004, when a major McKnight Boulevard N.E. break revealed concrete that “looked like talcum powder,” in the words of one retired water official.

The city responded by creating a citywide monitoring system trumpeted as one of the best anywhere.

A system we now discover was useless to prevent a new crisis.

Let's be blunt, based on the videos from the victims there could have been fatalities in slightly different circumstances.

And honestly good on Farkas for reacting so strongly and effectively and so quickly, even threatening a NYE meeting. Questions absolutely do need to be asked.

https://livewirecalgary.com/2025/12/...-back-on-2025/

Duckworth also talked about the billions in infrastructure work going on in Calgary right now: the Scotia Place, the Green Line, Arts Commons Transformation, downtown office conversions and ongoing water infrastructure rehabilitation.

One thing that 2025 lacked, however, was major surprises, Duckworth said.

“If I was to really think every year, there’s always surprises. There’s things that you really don’t anticipate,” he said.

“2025, by and large, I wouldn’t say there were any really big surprises, but because we were preparing for the election and still coming out of the pandemic and still catching up on certain things, I would say 2025 was less about surprises and more about really focusing on what we were trying to do for Calgarians.”

The irony of this happening litterally the next day, while still in 2025.

[Fuzz]

That's why it's called a surprise.

[powderjunkie]

I'm jaded against Farkas but this strikes me as performative bull####. An emergency meeting would be wasteful and counterproductive. What value can the mayor/councillors provide at this stage? At least its not a climate emergency or something. This never would have happened if they dealt with the flag raisings more urgently.


The potential loss of life for the motorists caught in this situation is certainly concerning, but no more concerning than the 35 funerals this year caused by the crisis on our roads (nevermind thousands of injuries). Now that's something that would have been worth an emergency meeting where city council could actually make an immediate and dramatic difference. But I suppose we should just tell the orphans and widows out there to be thankful if they aren't having to boil water right now. Such pain. Such tragedy.

[fotze2]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

That's why it's called a surprise.

And thats why you try and change things. To reduce likelihood and consequence. Risk management. Its widely known the civil engineers at the city went there because its a country club. They do not attract the best and brightest by a long shot.

[fotze2]

Originally Posted by powderjunkie

I'm jaded against Farkas but this strikes me as performative bull####. An emergency meeting would be wasteful and counterproductive. What value can the mayor/councillors provide at this stage? At least its not a climate emergency or something. This never would have happened if they dealt with the flag raisings more urgently.


The potential loss of life for the motorists caught in this situation is certainly concerning, but no more concerning than the 35 funerals this year caused by the crisis on our roads (nevermind thousands of injuries). Now that's something that would have been worth an emergency meeting where city council could actually make an immediate and dramatic difference. But I suppose we should just tell the orphans and widows out there to be thankful if they aren't having to boil water right now. Such pain. Such tragedy.

They should also have one about the cancer epidemic.

[Firebot]

Originally Posted by powderjunkie

I'm jaded against Farkas but this strikes me as performative bull####. An emergency meeting would be wasteful and counterproductive. What value can the mayor/councillors provide at this stage? At least its not a climate emergency or something. This never would have happened if they dealt with the flag raisings more urgently.


The potential loss of life for the motorists caught in this situation is certainly concerning, but no more concerning than the 35 funerals this year caused by the crisis on our roads (nevermind thousands of injuries). Now that's something that would have been worth an emergency meeting where city council could actually make an immediate and dramatic difference. But I suppose we should just tell the orphans and widows out there to be thankful if they aren't having to boil water right now. Such pain. Such tragedy.

Jesus get a grip on your heavy anti-Farkas bias.

Is this not your post last year? The only difference is we now have Farkas instead of Gondek and now have the benefit of hindsight.

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?

What changed your tune this time around? You are now downplaying this and using whataboutism? I mean a break in the middle of winter that endangered people directly is exactly the type of worse case event you were "fearmongering" about a year ago that you now want to dismiss it as "no more concerning"?

Farkas is doing exactly what should be expected from a mayor in an emergency situation and moreso, and you are dismissing it as performative bull#### just because of your own personal bias against him. This is even more apparent considering you have criticized Gondek in how bad she is at communicating in the past.

The worries that people had have actually occurred, our mayor is looking to answers on how despite hindsight we still had such an incident again, and you want to downplay the impact and severity suddenly because you don't like Farkas.

[MegaErtz]

They mayor shouldn't have to threaten to fire a civil servant to get them to turn over a document. Bureaucrats work for us, the voters, not the other way around. I'm no fan of Farkas but Duckworth should be gone if he hesitated for even a second when given a legal directive order from his boss.

[calgarywinning]

I feel Pete the Plumber should be held responsible. The reality is the water line is a principle in infrastructure and that the last failure and execution of the "fix" clearly missed a lot of evident problems putting our infrastructure at risk and lives.

Perhaps as we move into a demographic of people not understanding these complex systems they have governance we're going to see a lot of well designed good infrastructure decay due to lack of understanding or even the skill and trade base to get this going again.

All of this gesturing, the reality is the water line feeder is in massive jeopardy and will fail again, predictably. We need to look at running a secondary, maintenance and stop with the Farkas flinging.

[Bigtime]

Originally Posted by calgarywinning

All of this gesturing, the reality is the water line feeder is in massive jeopardy and will fail again, predictably. We need to look at running a secondary, maintenance and stop with the Farkas flinging.

The City knows all this since the last major break, and I believe a secondary line to relieve strain in situations like this is already under construction. The North feeder main: https://www.calgary.ca/planning/wate...ject-home.html

[Bigtime]

Oh and the usage dashboard is still a thing, I guess it runs all the time:

https://app.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrI...czNGVhZjE5NiJ9

[Locke]

Originally Posted by calgarywinning

I feel Pete the Plumber should be held responsible. The reality is the water line is a principle in infrastructure and that the last failure and execution of the "fix" clearly missed a lot of evident problems putting our infrastructure at risk and lives.

Perhaps as we move into a demographic of people not understanding these complex systems they have governance we're going to see a lot of well designed good infrastructure decay due to lack of understanding or even the skill and trade base to get this going again.

All of this gesturing, the reality is the water line feeder is in massive jeopardy and will fail again, predictably. We need to look at running a secondary, maintenance and stop with the Farkas flinging.

Agreed! Some plumbers have really dropped the ball here.

Now. I propose we round up some feckless lay-about Italians and set them to work constructing us some Aquaducts! Who says water has to be distributed in underground pipes? The Romans built 'em a couple thousand years ago and are experiencing a severe under-employment epidemic.

So go find Mario and Luigi and get 'em over here and they'll have this sorted out in no time!

[Jimmy Stang]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

The City knows all this since the last major break, and I believe a secondary line to relieve strain in situations like this is already under construction. The North feeder main: https://www.calgary.ca/planning/wate...ject-home.html

There's that one, but perhaps even more relevant is that the city is about to begin construction on a parallel replacement of this troublesome Bearspaw South Feeder Main.

https://www.calgary.ca/planning/wate...s-project.html

So basically: The pipe is failing before it was supposed to, got patched up the best they could in 2024, and a replacement is getting built.

If I was a gambling man, especially after this latest blowout, I would put a few bucks on another one before the replacement pipe is operational.

[accord1999]

Deleted - Information posted before

[Locke]

Having the last name of 'Duckworth' should preclude all efforts of employability. How does anyone hire a guy like that much less to a Public position?

He very clearly swims in a vault of money...so he gets paid a lot and he's probably been stealing our water this whole time.

Duckworth.

He gets paid a lot ergo vault full of money, and Ducks like water, so since he loves money and is in charge of water he ain't payin' for his water, he shall acquire it via other means.

I wouldnt be surprised if he was involved with the 'Big Bread' cartels in overpricing Canadian bread so that he could get the stale-dated stuff for free and distribute it to his fowl friends in his money-pond!

[Roughneck]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

The City knows all this since the last major break, and I believe a secondary line to relieve strain in situations like this is already under construction. The North feeder main: https://www.calgary.ca/planning/wate...ject-home.html

Originally Posted by Jimmy Stang

There's that one, but perhaps even more relevant is that the city is about to begin construction on a parallel replacement of this troublesome Bearspaw South Feeder Main.

https://www.calgary.ca/planning/wate...s-project.html

In addition to the South Feeder Main replacement, the 'redundancy and reliability' projects identified and planned for are:

North Calgary Servicing Line (2028) - better capacity and redundancy for the NW; being the 'highest' parts of the city the NW would put the most strain on the system if Glenmore has to do more heavy lifting

Crosstie Feeder Main (2029)- better redundancy for the NE

South Calgary Servicing Line (2031)- meant to tie Bearspaw to the south Calgary feeder lines. In the case of South Feeder problems where Glenmore has to carry the burden, this would allow the Bearspaw plant to keep contributing a lot of capacity, among other advantages.

When the South Feeder Main work is complete and redundancy lines are done, then the upgrades to the Glenmore WTP can take place for it to handle growth and improve redundancies. Bearspaw will need to handle the excess (though because of gravity, it's easier for Bearspaw to do that than it is for Glenmore to carry the load for Bearspaw).

When Glenmore WTP upgrades are done, then Bearspaw WTP upgrades can occur.

It would all be easy if people could just stop needing water for a few years, otherwise everything could get done all at once. But needing to keep the system operational while critical repairs occur and upgrades occur (all while the city continues to grow) always gets in the way of that kind of efficiency.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by Firebot

Jesus get a grip on your heavy anti-Farkas bias.

Is this not your post last year? The only difference is we now have Farkas instead of Gondek and now have the benefit of hindsight.



What changed your tune this time around? You are now downplaying this and using whataboutism? I mean a break in the middle of winter that endangered people directly is exactly the type of worse case event you were "fearmongering" about a year ago that you now want to dismiss it as "no more concerning"?

Farkas is doing exactly what should be expected from a mayor in an emergency situation and moreso, and you are dismissing it as performative bull#### just because of your own personal bias against him. This is even more apparent considering you have criticized Gondek in how bad she is at communicating in the past.

The worries that people had have actually occurred, our mayor is looking to answers on how despite hindsight we still had such an incident again, and you want to downplay the impact and severity suddenly because you don't like Farkas.

You really found one single post that admits its bias to be that obnoxious? I wonder what it would be like it if that happened all the time in some other political thread


The feedermain is a very serious problem and also not the end of the world. All of those questions I asked are still valid today. Running a city is complex and messy and #### happens.

I just chuckle at the pearl clutching about the danger to the public here compared to what happens on our roads the other 364 days a year, which is something the city could absolutely control better. Whereas the die was cast on this pipe a long time ago and it would have required incredible omniscience to know that this pipe needed to be prioritized over a bajillion other city priorities.

The city relies on plenty of even older infrastructure and it's neither cheap nor fast to replace it all. If they replaced this pipe then a bunch of other stuff would have been neglected and potentially blown up in our face. Maybe worse, maybe not. If one of the worst case scenarios that I wondered about happened then maybe I'd be frothing at the mouth against the bureaucrats. But I doubt it. I think I'd still find the obnoxious grandstanding regressive who spent four years hindering this city to be the problem. But hey, at least his heart is in the wrong place.

Seriously, what value is there in seeing a report yesterday instead of next week or next month? Active emergencies are not the time for the blame game.

[Captain Otto]

Does anyone know if Shouldice is open? Specifically the domed field (Encana field)?

311 doesn't seem to know and nothing has really been updated.

[M*A*S*H 4077]

Originally Posted by Bill Bumface

I'd hate to be the engineer getting the call this morning to figure out how to perform the repair right now while keeping the spring plans in mind.

I tried to convince him to say he was on vacation and call him on Jan 5th but apparently the public doesn't like that and roads need to be reopened and people want safe drinking water. Weird.

[puffnstuff]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...reak-9.7031950

No drop in Calgarians' water usage despite request from city after water main break

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by puffnstuff

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...reak-9.7031950

No drop in Calgarians' water usage despite request from city after water main break

Old news! Calgarians are awesome. Even completely hungover and needing extra hydration, they still skipped washing 2025 off of them in a long hot bath.





https://app.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrI...czNGVhZjE5NiJ9