Major Water Main Break in Bowness Area

[TorqueDog]

Originally Posted by ComixZone

Is it not appropriate to hold people responsible? As noted, this was a known problem during Nenshi’s time, and it was not investigated/actioned.

Your misogynistic comment towards the Premiere is also reprehensible, but seeing as your username honours a wife beater…go figure.

Municipal infrastructure spans administrations and blaming a former mayor -- who just so happens to be her official opposition -- years later is transparently partisan nonsense. So wipe off your chin and spare us the sudden concern for decorum.

[Kerplunk]

Originally Posted by TorqueDog

I saw the Beltline car wash lined up four to a bay (two in, two waiting). That said, it has been a while since the last time so I'll ask: I thought car washes don't use potable water so this is less of a concern than people, say, excessively running home appliances like dishwashers and laundry machines.

I see posts arguing that car washes use recycled water for the washes, but every source I've found online references between 70-90% recycled water, which I would think means some is pulled from the water lines?

I saw a number of around 40L of fresh water per vehicle, so about a regular shower per vehicle? That's a lot of extra water that could be used elsewhere.

[TorqueDog]

Originally Posted by Kerplunk

I see posts arguing that car washes use recycled water for the washes, but every source I've found online references between 70-90% recycled water, which I would think means some is pulled from the water lines?

I saw a number of around 40L of fresh water per vehicle, so about a regular shower per vehicle? That's a lot of extra water that could be used elsewhere.

Yeah that sounds like what I thought it was, but I wasn't sure and didn't really find anything conclusive from the last go around other than a lot of huffing and puffing about it.

[ComixZone]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Your takes on anything even vaguely political have to be some of the worst I’ve read on this board.

Sure, call it whatever you want.

You spend all day calling out politicians/points of views you don’t like, and encourage deplorable behaviour while doing it but you think you’re just because you’re right and everyone who holds an opposing opinion is an idiot.

All that makes you is a damn child, and why I’ve had you on my ignore list for months, and oops I clicked viewed post. You’re still you.

[Torture]

Yeah, doesn't seem like there was a clear answer on car washes other than the vague 'some recycled water' line.
No mayor wants to be the one to shut down businesses (and compensate them?) so we're stuck with '3 minute showers, if it's yellow let it mellow and don't do your laundry/dishes until it's full' (cause I love running my dishwasher and laundry on empty). Lower overall usage but we don't even have the 'limit watering your grass/plants' line in the winter.

During the summer the City sent all it's workers home where they could 'better control' their water usage. (And there's probably an argument to that with no automatic flush and not having the same demand for hygene....) If we're only looking at 7-10 days to fix (of which we're about half way through) why not send City workers home for the week to wallow in their filth and encourage other employers to do the same? That's an easy lever to pull.

[PaperBagger'14]

I remember one time the provincial government was involved with a high profile pipe. It cost $1.3 billion and resulted in 0 feet of pipe put to use.

[The Yen Man]

Smith already blaming Nenshi is so stupidly predictable that that was honestly the first thing I thought she'd do when we heard about this water main break. And she didn't disappoint. It's so obvious she tries to score political points whenever she can by blaming Nenshi for anything and everything that goes even remotely wrong in Calgary. It's honestly pretty childish, but on par with what Smith would do.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by ComixZone

Sure, call it whatever you want.

You spend all day calling out politicians/points of views you don’t like, and encourage deplorable behaviour while doing it but you think you’re just because you’re right and everyone who holds an opposing opinion is an idiot.

All that makes you is a damn child, and why I’ve had you on my ignore list for months, and oops I clicked viewed post. You’re still you.

I don’t think everybody with an opposing opinion is an idiot. I don’t even think everyone who holds an idiotic viewpoint is an idiot. But I do know an idiot when I see one.

And my guy, spare the “you’re on the list!” dramatics, especially after calling someone else old for childish behaviour. You’re a grown man, nobody cares who is on your ignore list, and we both know you’ve responded to more than a dozen of my posts over the last few months so if I’m on it, you’re still reading me anyway. Time to grow up.

Blaming Nenshi is partisan nonsense. I think you know that deep down. How far gone do you have to be to actually think that’s something worth defending?

I mean, we might as well point the finger at everyone responsible for putting the pipe down in the first place. But they’re not the opposition and your saviour didn’t point the frail finger, so what do you care, right? Where was Smith’s critique over the pipe issue when Nenshi was the mayor?

Thankfully there is a plan in place for a long term remedy and Farkas seems totally committed to seeing it through. But keep licking the boots of people trying to score cheap political points with total suckers lol.

[fotze2]

Originally Posted by Locke

Yeah...but its inappropriate to point the finger SOLELY at your most current Political Rival for a systemic problem that dozens, if not hundreds, of people overlooked over a long period of time and blame that very convenient individual for all of your problems because it scores political points.

Realistically? The Province shouldnt be pointing fingers, they should be trying to find a way to help.

I bet it was not overlooked by some engineers but kicked down the road by supervisors and higher to get to a capital spend number. It's basically my life a work dealing with cans kicked down the road for future guy to fix.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by fotze2

I bet it was not overlooked by some engineers but kicked down the road by supervisors and higher to get to a capital spend number. It's basically my life a work dealing with cans kicked down the road for future guy to fix.

Yeah...maybe Nenshi knew and didn't do anything about it? And thats a 'man-sized maybe.' But ultimately thats a giant #### sandwich from which many, many, MANY people need to take a bite.

I'd be more than willing to bet that you're absolutely right. Thats a can that a crapload of people kicked down the road.

"Does it still work? Yes? It could fail at any time though? That sounds like the next guy's problem."

[fotze2]

Originally Posted by Locke

Yeah...maybe Nenshi knew and didn't do anything about it? And thats a 'man-sized maybe.' But ultimately thats a giant #### sandwich from which many, many, MANY people need to take a bite.

I'd be more than willing to bet that you're absolutely right. Thats a can that a crapload of people kicked down the road.

"Does it still work? Yes? It could fail at any time though? That sounds like the next guy's problem."

I would hope he would not looking into that type of detail. That is what you hire experts for.

I have had a property that has been owned for three distinct companies in the past 15 years, the last company I had come back to after being somewhere else.

Come back, same can (pipeline inspection ILI) still being kicked down the road.

It is at about arriving at the pre-destined budget number and these are big ticket spends and technical people tend to be pusses in their language saying something is optional when it really should not be.

Also the problem must be that inspecting requires an outage which is unpalatable usually.

[1991 Canadian]

Originally Posted by ComixZone

Is it not appropriate to hold people responsible? As noted, this was a known problem during Nenshi’s time, and it was not investigated/actioned.

Your misogynistic comment towards the Premiere is also reprehensible, but seeing as your username honours a wife beater…go figure.

Its funny you mention this because Nenshi (and his merry band of inner city progressives) are on record in council minutes to not remove waste water improvements from the 3P2014 bylaws. It's actually all the conservative leaning city councilor's who voted against the waste water improvements.

2014 is especially notable because this is the year that a key report on the state of the water mains came out. I'm assuming this was the known issue you are referring to.

The mayor is a single vote on council. If the other councilors vote to kick the problem down the line and save near term tax money, there is not much a mayor can do.

I agree with the other comments that there are 100s of people who can share some degree of blame, but at least start with politicians who actually voted against the issue.


2014 Council Meetings, Page 168

AMENDMENT, Moved by Councillor Chabot, Seconded by Councillor Demong, that Bylaw
3P2014, as amended, be further amended, in Schedule “A”, on Page 35, Section 6.3.1,
Publicly Funded Improvements, by deleting Bullet 3, in its entirety, as follows:
“• Improvements to major water, wastewater and storm infrastructure.”
ROLL CALL VOTE:
For:
A. Chabot, S. Chu, D. Colley-Urquhart, P. Demong, D. Farrell, R. Jones, S. Keating,
J. Magliocca, R. Pootmans, J. Stevenson, W. Sutherland
Against:
G-C. Carra, B. Pincott, E. Woolley, N. Nenshi
CARRIED

[1] https://www.calgary.ca/council/meeti...s-by-year.html > Go to 2014 Minutes

[2] https://calgaryherald.com/feature/in...ter-main-break

[Firebot]

Originally Posted by Torture

Yeah, doesn't seem like there was a clear answer on car washes other than the vague 'some recycled water' line.
No mayor wants to be the one to shut down businesses (and compensate them?) so we're stuck with '3 minute showers, if it's yellow let it mellow and don't do your laundry/dishes until it's full' (cause I love running my dishwasher and laundry on empty). Lower overall usage but we don't even have the 'limit watering your grass/plants' line in the winter.

There is a 2025 main break FAQ which talks specifically about car washes

https://www.calgary.ca/emergencies/f...break-faq.html

Are car washes allowed to stay open?

Yes. Commercial car washes are allowed to operate. Most indoor car washes recycle around 85 per cent of their water. We encourage drivers to wash their vehicles only when necessary for safety (to keep windows, mirrors and license plates clean).

It's reused and reused throughout cycles, so the impact is lower and supposedly the equivalent of a normal person shower per car. Out of the water using businesses, optically carwashes seem bad but there are worse offenders.

The problem is all the other stuff such as restaurants operating at full capacity which makes little sense while residents are told to use water sparingly and "do better".

At least we have a bit more quantitative numbers this time around and a better round of communication. The comments at the beginning of the thread were questioning poor messaging choices and why we have billboards for fire bans when we have a water main break.

There may be stronger warnings soon as the dangers despite lower consumption are higher than in the summer due to the lower Elbow River levels in the winter.

[fotze2]

I wand washed my car yesterday. I totally didn't think about it until right now.

They should introduce a surtax on water amounts greater than some number.

For residential, if your water level is greater than 70% of your normal average number than 75% increase in water cost,

For industrial non-essential, just a straight increase percentage of some number.

Actually paying for it will affect behavior.

[curves2000]

What I can't understand at this point is why not just turn off the water by rotating basis if and I mean if Calgarian's don't actually get the message? In a lot of countries with water issues due to drought, insufficient rain, treatment capacity etc, there sometimes is no water for an hour or two due to capacity issues. I am not referring to 3rd world nation's either. This could be timed for less busy hours such as middle of the night, early morning, late night in areas with relatively minor disruption.

Obviously this is a last resort but let's get real, how many people are still paying attention every day about these details? Red zone this and 10 million liter deficit that. If the taps are dry, the message get's sent.

[btimbit]

People are offended by even being asked to conserve. Remember the vitriol thrown at Gondek that last major break? Shutting it off is a sure fire way to never get elected ever again

[Slava]

Originally Posted by btimbit

People are offended by even being asked to conserve. Remember the vitriol thrown at Gondek that last major break? Shutting it off is a sure fire way to never get elected ever again

As it should be. If they skipped to turning off water, without examining other options, they 100% deserve to lose the next election.

[curves2000]

Originally Posted by btimbit

People are offended by even being asked to conserve. Remember the vitriol thrown at Gondek that last major break? Shutting it off is a sure fire way to never get elected ever again

Agreed but then again we are being told it's a crisis, it's a crisis. We need to conserve for emergencies etc. The amount of clear waste is evident which is why we are where we are. Bring the gun to the knife fight and maybe the message get's across after a day that we should stop messaging around.

Or don't......I just don't know what % of people are actually really invested in something like this cause they can't see it really affecting. The views on the youtube page appear to be 3k-9k in views. We sometimes have way higher views of that talking line combo's and hockey related debates. But we are being told that the this crisis can be life threatening according to the Mayor.

[troutman]

Originally Posted by ComixZone

Sure, call it whatever you want.

You spend all day calling out politicians/points of views you don’t like, and encourage deplorable behaviour while doing it but you think you’re just because you’re right and everyone who holds an opposing opinion is an idiot.

All that makes you is a damn child, and why I’ve had you on my ignore list for months, and oops I clicked viewed post. You’re still you.

If you do that, your browser will look like a redacted Epstein document.

[puffnstuff]

Nenshi should have just used the notwithstanding clause to fix the pipes instead of just being one vote on Council.
Does have even know how to government in Alberta?