Major Water Main Break in Bowness Area

[Manhattanboy]

Wrong thread.

[Fuzz]

Spoiler!

This bad boy was rolling up Crowchild at around noon today.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by Acey

Is there any car wash in the city that's open using recycled water? I swear I'm not a bad person I just want to give it a 30 second spray...

So nothing? I need a hose off, too. Don't like rolling dirty.

[fotze2]

Originally Posted by Sliver

So nothing? I need a hose off, too. Don't like rolling dirty.

Is anyone actually heeding this? It’s like having Covid now vs three years ago. No one cares.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by fotze2

Is anyone actually heeding this? It’s like having Covid now vs three years ago. No one cares.

The city is posting water numbers and we are holding pretty close to the target 450. So yes people are still conserving water.

There is a good graphic on the city website.

https://www.calgary.ca/emergencies/c...june-2024.html

Expect a lecture Monday morning after this weekends nice weather.

[PepsiFree]

City sent a letter this week to car washes saying they could close or switch their water source, as the city would shut off their water if they didn’t.

Mint has apparently switched their water source, so you could go there without feeling guilty.

[Cecil Terwilliger]

After weeks without water, Calgarians now smell like Edmontonians

After two weeks of restricted access to water for showers, laundry, and other acts of hygiene, sources have reported that Calgarians now smell like Edmontonians do all year long.

“Jesus, it reeks like Whyte Avenue in here,” said a Calgarian eating in a crowded restaurant. “If I wanted to smell filthy, sweat-drenched people abandoned by God himself I’d go to an Oilers game.”

https://www.thebeaverton.com/2024/06...-edmontonians/

[8 Ball]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

City sent a letter this week to car washes saying they could close or switch their water source, as the city would shut off their water if they didn’t.

Mint has apparently switched their water source, so you could go there without feeling guilty.

I wonder how exactly they switched their water source?

[GGG]

Originally Posted by 8 Ball

I wonder how exactly they switched their water source?

https://calgaryherald.com/news/local...r-restrictions

Sounds like Mint has a reservoir they use to fill up and are shipping in water for it.

[8 Ball]

Originally Posted by GGG

https://calgaryherald.com/news/local...r-restrictions

Sounds like Mint has a reservoir they use to fill up and are shipping in water for it.

So Mint car wash installed a reservoir system for just this very scenario?

[BlackArcher101]

It's a portable tank sitting outside that they plumbed in with hoses

[GGG]

Mint was packed when I drove buy today.

[Zary's-Mustache]

How is the city going to lift restrictions? At the same time or just have different zones slowly open?

I don't think you can lift restrictions to the city in all areas at the same time because you don't want everyone watering their grass and plants at the same time.

I think having quadrants opening at certain days will be best approach.

[Parallex]

Originally Posted by Zary's-Mustache

How is the city going to lift restrictions? At the same time or just have different zones slowly open?

I don't think you can lift restrictions to the city in all areas at the same time because you don't want everyone watering their grass and plants at the same time.

I think having quadrants opening at certain days will be best approach.

Why? It's not like we'll have a lack of water. Once Bearspaw is back up and running we'll have double the treated water supply.

[Zary's-Mustache]

Originally Posted by Parallex

Why? It's not like we'll have a lack of water. Once Bearspaw is back up and running we'll have double the treated water supply.

That still might not be enough if they lift restrictions and you have hundreds of thousands of people watering their grass for hours on end at the same time.

Just my opinion. I think we might run into a problem if they just lift restrictions at a set day and time for everyone.

[Bigtime]

Forecast is calling for like 25mm of rain on Thursday, people might not need to water their lawns for hours on end right away.

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by Zary's-Mustache

That still might not be enough if they lift restrictions and you have hundreds of thousands of people watering their grass for hours on end at the same time.

Just my opinion. I think we might run into a problem if they just lift restrictions at a set day and time for everyone.

I don’t think that’s how watering works.

[D as in David]

Originally Posted by Wormius

I don’t think that’s how watering works.

This guy knows.

https://youtu.be/noIVmMHX_TU?si=PELqIVIH47bMmg9m

[timun]

Originally Posted by Zary's-Mustache

How is the city going to lift restrictions? At the same time or just have different zones slowly open?

I don't think you can lift restrictions to the city in all areas at the same time because you don't want everyone watering their grass and plants at the same time.

I think having quadrants opening at certain days will be best approach.

Originally Posted by Parallex

Why? It's not like we'll have a lack of water. Once Bearspaw is back up and running we'll have double the treated water supply.

Originally Posted by Zary's-Mustache

That still might not be enough if they lift restrictions and you have hundreds of thousands of people watering their grass for hours on end at the same time.

Just my opinion. I think we might run into a problem if they just lift restrictions at a set day and time for everyone.

Your worries about "hundreds of thousands of people watering their grass" are way overblown. It's going to rain Thursday-Friday this week, and likely Monday-Tuesday next week: other than people who laid down fresh sod or planted trees recently, basically nobody needs much in the way of water for the sake of vegetation right now. And even if they did it won't be a big deal.

With respect to demands on the system, keep in mind the main in question will be filled, flushed, tested, flushed again, tested again before it nominally returns to full service and we have the "A-OK" to go back to normal. In reality the line will "work" for several days before it's called "done".

Frankly there are huge swaths of the city that hypothetically never really "had" to go on restrictions from a technical perspective. There are only so many interconnections, that are only 'so' big, between the pressure zones in the distribution system. The consumption of households in Tuscany, Royal Oak and Rocky Ridge for instance, and from neighbourhoods on the south side of the city south of... eh, Glenmore Trail-ish?... could have gone to zero: it still wouldn't have increased the ability to keep the rest of the city going.

The real danger of collapse in the system has always been the parts of the city east of Nose Hill. Where the feeder main broke is right by the single most critical pumping station in the system: the one at the bottom of Shaganappi Trail and Bowness Road/16th Ave. That pumping station feeds a big main to reservoirs at the foot of Nose Hill, northwest of 14th Street and John Laurie Blvd. (Ever noticed the fields south of the Winter Club surrounded by chain-link fence with no-trespassing signs, topped with barbed wire? A big, seemingly random chunk of land, the layout of which basically says "####-off-and-go-away" to everyone? That'd be the reservoirs!) From there the rest of the central-north parts of the city—all those 'Hills' neighbourhoods; Huntington, Panorama, Beddington, Coventry, etc.—are served, with other reservoirs located along the east side of Nose Hill. They don't otherwise interconnect with the west side of Nose Hill (yet; there is a project on the books to add a new feeder main to link them), and it all flows downhill to the east from there.

[Reggie Dunlop]

Originally Posted by timun

That pumping station feeds a big main to reservoirs at the foot of Nose Hill, northwest of 14th Street and John Laurie Blvd. (Ever noticed the fields south of the Winter Club surrounded by chain-link fence with no-trespassing signs, topped with barbed wire? A big, seemingly random chunk of land, the layout of which basically says "####-off-and-go-away" to everyone? That'd be the reservoirs!) From there the rest of the central-north parts of the city—all those 'Hills' neighbourhoods; Huntington, Panorama, Beddington, Coventry, etc.—are served, with other reservoirs located along the east side of Nose Hill. They don't otherwise interconnect with the west side of Nose Hill (yet; there is a project on the books to add a new feeder main to link them), and it all flows downhill to the east from there.

I learned something today.