Mountain Man
Senior Member
No water in the cooler today lol. Who was drilling in Bowness and hit the main?! I was in the shower last night after my ride home and the water pressure dropped right out lol.
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Water main break discussion
- Thread starter Mountain Man
- Start date
Mountain Man
Senior Member
The news was saying its a feeder main that ruptured, that's why it's a big enough deal that they sent the emergency alert.
trtcttc
Active Member
Mountain Man
Senior Member
3m? you could drive through that!
darwink
Senior Member
Most people would be able to stand upright in the pipe. It is massive, 6 foot 4.75 inches.
The control points are a valve chamber at 44th Street, along with one just south east of 43rd Street:
The one to the NE is on the other side of the Bow River:
It looks like there is a connector at home road to feed lower Montgomery, among possible others:
The area needs to remain pressurized or it is possible the entire local supply will need to be replaced (whether the 1959 pipes, the oldest I could find poking around, could survive a full depressurization I doubt can be known with 100% certainty). Here is the map where we can see marked with pink arrows pressure reducing valves surrounding what I think would be the 'danger zone':
So steps from a lay person:
find the actual break. Isolate the local system from the main. if possible do the water equivalent of a hot tap on the main (the main is concrete, so perhaps a steel jacket? even if it leaks somewhat that matters a lot less in the immediate term). Hope the system can otherwise provide service without the main feeder main to the pump station just down 16th:
Build a bypass, conduct a full repair.
This will be a multi-month affair at least. Hopefully water system to full service by early next week at worst.
The control points are a valve chamber at 44th Street, along with one just south east of 43rd Street:
The one to the NE is on the other side of the Bow River:
It looks like there is a connector at home road to feed lower Montgomery, among possible others:
The area needs to remain pressurized or it is possible the entire local supply will need to be replaced (whether the 1959 pipes, the oldest I could find poking around, could survive a full depressurization I doubt can be known with 100% certainty). Here is the map where we can see marked with pink arrows pressure reducing valves surrounding what I think would be the 'danger zone':
So steps from a lay person:
find the actual break. Isolate the local system from the main. if possible do the water equivalent of a hot tap on the main (the main is concrete, so perhaps a steel jacket? even if it leaks somewhat that matters a lot less in the immediate term). Hope the system can otherwise provide service without the main feeder main to the pump station just down 16th:
Build a bypass, conduct a full repair.
This will be a multi-month affair at least. Hopefully water system to full service by early next week at worst.
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darwink
Senior Member
The hydrant is fed by a 15 cm pvc pipe. It isn't that. It could be used to reduce local pressure.
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darwink
Senior Member
Elevation profile of the area:
Rollerstud98
Active Member
Yeah it was a BIG blowout too, saw a photo of debris all across 16th ave from the blowout.
Mountain Man
Senior Member
Appreciate the insight into something we 100% take for granted! Really curious what happened and how the city can prevent it from happening again. My first thought is a contractor digging somewhere had an oops, but I feel like the city would have said that and not that they were still looking for the cause...
I live in Point McKay, so probably 1km east of the break, and I had about 75% water pressure this morning. Curious how it's going west of this, sounds like Bowness has it the worst since there is a boil water advisory.
I live in Point McKay, so probably 1km east of the break, and I had about 75% water pressure this morning. Curious how it's going west of this, sounds like Bowness has it the worst since there is a boil water advisory.
darwink
Senior Member
@Surrealplaces — would it make sense to move the water main break posts to a new thread to help with discovery—I imagine this thread isn’t the most regularly visited one.
Mountain Man
Senior Member
They were saying on the news last night that maintenance was done on this pipe in April.
trtcttc
Active Member
seems like more curbs incoming : https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/calgary-using-more-water-than-it-can-produce-officials-say-1.6917522
What I'd like more clarity on is what is the best way to address this issue? It's hard to ask people to not wash dishes, shower, etc. when restaurants, car washes (yes I know they recycle their water) are operating. Is it that the water use is simply too high in total, in which case they need to take more forceful restrictions. Or similar to electricity, there's a timing issue. Since the pipe burst, the reservoirs can't be refilled fast enough during peak times? If that's the case, I think they should be more forthcoming and people that are able to will simply adjust their time of use to during the day or late in the evening to alleviate that issue.
What I'd like more clarity on is what is the best way to address this issue? It's hard to ask people to not wash dishes, shower, etc. when restaurants, car washes (yes I know they recycle their water) are operating. Is it that the water use is simply too high in total, in which case they need to take more forceful restrictions. Or similar to electricity, there's a timing issue. Since the pipe burst, the reservoirs can't be refilled fast enough during peak times? If that's the case, I think they should be more forthcoming and people that are able to will simply adjust their time of use to during the day or late in the evening to alleviate that issue.
CBBarnett
Senior Member
This article doesn't link to the press conference, but they did speak to a bit about this. General ideas to save 25% additional water today in practice are pretty unremarkable - i.e. have a 25% shorter shower, "selectively" flush toilets only when needed, don't do extra laundry and dishes etc. - they made a reference to having 1 - 2 days of supply at all times in clean water reservoirs throughout the system which are constantly draining and filling.
The gap was yesterday in the evening Calgary used more water than they could refill these reservoirs with this main out of action. That's where the request to try harder today comes from. If you take out more than you put in over a long period you got problems. The other thing, I'd imagine they are worried about is if another unexpected issue occurs at the same time - e.g. a major fire which requires huge volumes of water. Then you push a tight supply situation into an actual crisis pretty quick.
Related, here's a neat site with some facts about Calgary's water supply. This chart is actually incredibly impressive. If I recall, the main driver was the mandate to install water meters everywhere in the 2000s and charge people for how much they use.
Also this neat graph - I never really thought about just how much water usage can increase due to weather:
I don't know how long this shortage will go on for, but one possibility is to raise the cost of water to the point people think twice about wasting it. I was at work yesterday and was surprised at some of the people not being concerned about it at all. For example a coworker said he couldn't care less about the cutbacks, he was going to do his dishes and have a shower because according to him "there is nothing they could do about it" Later in the afternoon the cleaning staff was in mopping the floors, even though there only a half dozen people in and the floors were already clean. Car washes recycle most of their water (~80%) but is it necessary to wash the car now? People are still doing it.
Currently we are paying $ 1.464300 / m3, Imagine if the city bumped that to $20 /m3, people might use it only if they really need it.
Currently we are paying $ 1.464300 / m3, Imagine if the city bumped that to $20 /m3, people might use it only if they really need it.
Mountain Man
Senior Member
Hopefully enough people cut back to make up for those that don't. I bet this is going to take a week or two to fix, probably quite the headache logistically.