Calgary's water restrictions could last 3 to 5 more weeks as crews find more problems with broken water main

City officials say five further locations require repair along a water feeder main that supplies over half of Calgary's drinking water.

The additional breaks meanrepairs could take another three to five weeks, officials said at a press conference Friday afternoon.

Sue Henry, Calgary Emergency Management Agency (CEMA) chief, called the situation "the most dramatic and traumatic break of the feeder main they have ever seen."

"The pipe is not safe to bring into service without these repairs," she said."Our only choice is to stay the course with our current water restrictions for three to five weeks further."

WATCH | Calgary officials say 5 new 'hot spots' identified in water feeder main:

Calgary city officials provide an update on critical water main break

3 months ago

Duration 23:43

City officials will provide an update on the latest on the water main break situation.

The additional breaks were discovered after a robot wassent into the feeder main to assess roughly 300 metres of the pipe. The robot uses sensors to collect data that show problems with the integrity of the pipe.

The robotfound five "hot spots" where significant breakage had occurred in the prestressed steel wires used to reinforce the concrete pipe.

"Our assessment shows the hot spots cannot safely withstand the amount of pressure we need to run through the feeder main," said Francois Bouchart, the director of capital priorities and investment with the city's infrastructure services department.

"If we were to complete current repairs and restore the water feeder main now, it would be at high risk of additional catastrophic breaks."

The 5 hot spots

Bouchart said thefive hot spots are located southeast of the current break, west of the Shaganappi pump station, which is located in Edworthy Park at the bottom of Shaganappi Trail.

He said the city has determined that a significantcontributing factor of the feeder main break was the breakage of steel wires, which arecoiled "like a slinky" within the inner layer of concrete pipe.

"As we saw in our current break, when the wires break in multiple places, it weakens the pipe and can lead to a catastrophic pipe failure," he said. "The degree of breakage we're seeing in these sections of pipe require emergency repair."

Nancy Mackay, Calgary's water services director, who also spoke at Friday's news conference, said the city has seen "excellent co-operation" from both residents and businesses when it comes to reducing water use.

"The next few weeks will be critical for us. Over the past several days, we've been working with our large industrial commercial customers to ask them to do whatever they can to reduce water," Mackay said.

WATCH | Mayor, fire and bylaw chiefs call for water conservation:

Calgary city officials provide an update on critical water main break

3 months ago

Duration 14:39

City officials provide an update on the latest on the water main break situation.

"With today's situation, we are now contacting some customers to ask them to stop some operations and some activities if we need to. The city has the ability to turn off water to a business if they are not complying with that ask. This would be a last resort and one we are prepared to take if need be."

Situation 'urgent and catastrophic,' says mayor

Earlier Friday, Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek warned thatthe citycould be forced to bring inmandatory indoorwater restrictions if water usagecontinues at its current rate, calling the situation"urgent and catastrophic."

"We don't know what that looks like.I really don't want to get to that stage," Gondek said. "But if we can't do our part by banding together, there may be some restrictions that come into place."

The Bearspaw south water main, which is 11 kilometres long and as wide as two metres in parts, suffered a break on June 5 that temporarily left hundreds of homes and businesses in the city's northwest without water. The pipe failure triggered a fire ban and mandatory outdoor water restrictions.

Henry said the older and smaller Glenmore treatment plant has been carrying a massiveload trying to supply water to the rest of the city without its companion plant: the Bearspaw Water Treatement Plant, which draws water from the Bow River and providesroughly 60 per cent of the city's treated water supply.

She said the city has begun preparations to bring in redundant parts, as well as putting personnel andequipment on standby, in a bid to respond quickly if an issue arises.

"We essentially want tobubble wrapthatGlenmore treatment plant so we keep it as safe, protected, as possible, knowing the heavy need that we are placing on it and will continue to place on it," she said Friday afternoon.

Water usage has been increasing every day since Saturday, three days after the pipe broke. On Thursday,480 million litres considered the sustainable threshold was used across the city.

That's less than the amount used the previous day, but according to the mayor, it'snot enough.

"If our water usage continues to trend up and our water can't keep up, the taps will run dry at some point," Gondek said.

There's still notimeline for when that could happen, or how many days of water supply the city has, but the mayor did have a responsefor those wondering.

"The only answer that the more water we use, the sooner those taps run dry," Gondek said. "You and I, we cannot give up on our conservation efforts right now. We need to do better."

Work on the feeder main sitewas temporarily paused overnight Wednesday and into Thursday morning when two people were injured on site. Repair workbegan again on Thursday afternoon.