Water Main Rupture Causes State of Emergency to be Declared - Calgary

[slough shark]

Originally Posted by I’d rather be outdoors

Will be interesting to find out a clear and simple answer on why it broke in the 1st place.

I’m not a betting man but if I were it probably went down like this. A couple months ago when they did their inspection and noticed some potentially critical issues the boots on the ground said hey we need to do something about this, this could cause a critical failure. The department head or city hall (not sure how high it went) told them to do the quick and dirty patch job and they’d “come up with a plan” aka kicking the can down the road. Well 2 months went by and nothing happened so everyone forgot about it and then blamo here we are. In my experience most large issues like this are ones that people have known about for months or years and due to cost, complexity or laziness nothing gets done until you have a critical failure.

[Sundancefisher]

Heard newest update is they did a scan of the pipe and found other cracks and problems and not are predicting it could be 3-5 weeks before the pipe is fixed then another week to test and refill.

What a merde show.

Great thing we built lots of bike lanes and spent money on the green line instead of making the water system durable.

[Grizzly Adams1]

Originally Posted by slough shark

I’m not a betting man but if I were it probably went down like this. A couple months ago when they did their inspection and noticed some potentially critical issues the boots on the ground said hey we need to do something about this, this could cause a critical failure. The department head or city hall (not sure how high it went) told them to do the quick and dirty patch job and they’d “come up with a plan” aka kicking the can down the road. Well 2 months went by and nothing happened so everyone forgot about it and then blamo here we are. In my experience most large issues like this are ones that people have known about for months or years and due to cost, complexity or laziness nothing gets done until you have a critical failure.

They're talking 3 to 5 weeks now , apparently there is a lot more damaged pipe then they bargained on. Somebody needs to be held responsible. Gonna be a lot of smelly people at the Stampede before this is done.

[jungleboy]

Originally Posted by slough shark

I’m not a betting man but if I were it probably went down like this. A couple months ago when they did their inspection and noticed some potentially critical issues the boots on the ground said hey we need to do something about this, this could cause a critical failure. The department head or city hall (not sure how high it went) told them to do the quick and dirty patch job and they’d “come up with a plan” aka kicking the can down the road. Well 2 months went by and nothing happened so everyone forgot about it and then blamo here we are. In my experience most large issues like this are ones that people have known about for months or years and due to cost, complexity or laziness nothing gets done until you have a critical failure.

They had a guy on the radio yesterday saying this pipe is 45 yrs into it’s projected 100 yr lifespan. They had no reason to expect a catastrophic failure.

So probably good, your not a betting man.

[Talking moose]

This reeks of Donald Trump.

[I’d rather be outdoors]

Originally Posted by slough shark

I’m not a betting man but if I were it probably went down like this. A couple months ago when they did their inspection and noticed some potentially critical issues the boots on the ground said hey we need to do something about this, this could cause a critical failure. The department head or city hall (not sure how high it went) told them to do the quick and dirty patch job and they’d “come up with a plan” aka kicking the can down the road. Well 2 months went by and nothing happened so everyone forgot about it and then blamo here we are. In my experience most large issues like this are ones that people have known about for months or years and due to cost, complexity or laziness nothing gets done until you have a critical failure.

Sounds about right. They’ll have spin doctors working overtime on excuses.

[big zeke]

So, umm

Does Ms Gondek have a new title...

Mayor of Stinkytown

Asking for a friend

[I’d rather be outdoors]

Originally Posted by Grizzly Adams1

They're talking 3 to 5 weeks now , apparently there is a lot more damaged pipe then they bargained on. Somebody needs to be held responsible. Gonna be a lot of smelly people at the Stampede before this is done.

There’s no apparent about it:

https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/calgary-w...pipe-1.6926981

Kinda familiar “two weeks to flatten the curve”. Firings should commence pronto. I guess they got the “drought crisis” they were hoping for after all. There’s just no credible excuses.

[59whiskers]

Might have to stop those transfer payments to Ottawa.

[WABBIT]

Funny how that line was built 49 years ago, and had a 50-70 year lifespan. but now it's a 100 year lifespan and failed at 49. The number crunchers are making things work again

[roper1]

I wonder why a 24" or a 36" above ground temporary line wouldn't at least help somewhat. Surely someone in the brain trust could engineer that. Summer, no freeze, the water is at Bearspaw just need to move it

[Sporty]

Originally Posted by Ackleyman

Its not a friggin conspiracy , the damn pipe broke. Asking to conserve water for awhile isn't a major hardship , shouldnt be a big deal. Having NO water for a long time is a big deal.

This!

After seeing all the sensationalized news and wild theories on social media, I wanted to know what was really happening. So, I reached out to a couple of my family members in Calgary to get their take. Basically it's the same as the level 3 or 4 water restrictions they deal with every summer on Vancouver Island. My family members are actually more conscious on how much water they regularly waste now that they're being more conservative with their usage. Asking folks to run a full dishwasher rather than half empty and not to have 10 minute showers isn't that big of a hardship.

Originally Posted by Unregistered user

Can't water our spuds but the car washes are still open, silly ain't it?

Most car washes recycle their water. This is a good time for gardeners to invest in rain barrels.

Some people here are upset about temporarily conserving water, yet these are often the same individuals who believe Alberta should become a U.S. state and supply water to their desert regions. If that happened, the U.S. government would likely impose permanent water restrictions on Alberta to serve their own interests.

[Grizzly Adams1]

Some people here are upset about temporarily conserving water, yet these are often the same individuals who believe Alberta should become a U.S. state and supply water to their desert regions. If that happened, the U.S. government would likely impose permanent water restrictions on Alberta to serve their own interests.


5 to 7 days is temporary and probably doable with restrictions, 3 to 5 weeks is a serious crisis, we're dealing with probably over 1.5 million people. We're told wars of the future will be about water, don't write the Yankees coming for ours.

[Sundancefisher]

Originally Posted by Grizzly Adams1

Some people here are upset about temporarily conserving water, yet these are often the same individuals who believe Alberta should become a U.S. state and supply water to their desert regions. If that happened, the U.S. government would likely impose permanent water restrictions on Alberta to serve their own interests.


5 to 7 days is temporary and probably doable with restrictions, 3 to 5 weeks is a serious crisis, we're dealing with probably over 1.5 million people. We're told wars of the future will be about water, don't write the Yankees coming for ours.

Enough is enough. We need to take back control of our water in Calgary! Are you with us!

[dmcbride]

Originally Posted by roper1

I wonder why a 24" or a 36" above ground temporary line wouldn't at least help somewhat. Surely someone in the brain trust could engineer that. Summer, no freeze, the water is at Bearspaw just need to move it

X2, definitely enough fracking hoses and pumps in Alberta to make this happen.

[Grizzly Adams1]

[QUOTE=Sundancefisher;4730159]Enough is enough. We need to take back control of our water in Calgary! Are you with us!

I've got a couple of deca liter containers here somewhere I'll contribute.

[Tungsten,]

If everybody flushed their toilets 3 less times a day we'd be back on track I read.

So go pee outside lol.

[Fisher1]

Maybe they should bring back single use plastic plates, cutlery, etc. to reduce the water used in dishwashing? Maybe the restaurants should be doing that also?

[Unregistered user]

Originally Posted by Sporty

This!

After seeing all the sensationalized news and wild theories on social media, I wanted to know what was really happening. So, I reached out to a couple of my family members in Calgary to get their take. Basically it's the same as the level 3 or 4 water restrictions they deal with every summer on Vancouver Island. My family members are actually more conscious on how much water they regularly waste now that they're being more conservative with their usage. Asking folks to run a full dishwasher rather than half empty and not to have 10 minute showers isn't that big of a hardship.



Most car washes recycle their water. This is a good time for gardeners to invest in rain barrels.

Some people here are upset about temporarily conserving water, yet these are often the same individuals who believe Alberta should become a U.S. state and supply water to their desert regions. If that happened, the U.S. government would likely impose permanent water restrictions on Alberta to serve their own interests.

Some car washes may recycle water used in the wash cycle, but the rinse is always fresh water, the salt would rust our cars to swiss cheese in no time if they didn't. this whole thing stinks. Ask your family members if they remember the mayor beaking off a few months ago about coming water restrictions due to the expected drought. We are experiencing a very wet drought this year.

[Big Sky]

Not sure how much rain has fallen today, but the rain barrels are all filled. Got enough water to water the garden and flower beds for at least a week.

[igorot]

Nobody is looking at the white elephant in the room. Any work in the city only progresses with the union's blessing. They have the best hand at the poker table and do not care who is on the receiving end, the taxpayers. Time to milk the cow.

[Grizzly Adams1]

Originally Posted by igorot

Nobody is looking at the white elephant in the room. Any work in the city only progresses with the union's blessing. They have the best hand at the poker table and do not care who is on the receiving end, the taxpayers. Time to milk the cow.

And they just happen to be negotiating a contract right now.

[Sundancefisher]

Good rain in Calgary is very timely. Just need a regular rain for the next 7 weeks.

[Unregistered user]

According to Wikipedia, the 1970s was a decade of economic upheaval, increasing political awareness and the continued liberation of women. It was also a time when below-specification PCCP pipelines were manufactured, an issue which leaves the United States in particular facing massive repair and reinforcement projects 40 years on.

PCCP (prestressed concrete cylinder pipe) was first invented in 1942. It combined the compressive strength of concrete and the tensile strength of steel to create pipelines capable of carrying huge capacities under high pressure buried underground.

The appeal of PCCP was obvious, especially for water and wastewater networks. Pipes could be constructed that were over 3.5 metres in diameter, running beneath towns, roads and countryside to provide or take away vast quantities of water.

At the heart of PCCP were pre-stressing steel wires. These were located between the concrete core of the pipe and an outer shell made from mortar, designed to protect the wires from corrosion.

The wires produced a uniform compressive pressure in the concrete core of the pipe, offsetting tensile stresses. The concrete core represented the main structural load-bearing components with a steel cylinder placed in-between two layers of concrete to act as a water barrier.

When PCCP was first introduced, it was governed by standards set by the American Water Works Association (AWWA) and a high factor of safety was used.

The composite technology used in PCCP was so new that engineers played it conservatively, knowing that if their calculations about the lifespan of PCCP were to be incorrect, then there could be serious issues when it came to repair and reinforcement down the line.

For the first 20 years, that safety factor remained in place. By the time the 1970s arrived, things began to change thanks to a mix of overconfidence in PCCP and supposed improvements in the strength of steel.

As is so often the case when it comes poor decision making, money was a factor. PCCP networks across North America were operating successfully, and that gave manufacturers the confidence to start altering the structure of PCCP in a bid to reduce the cost of production.

One of the ways they did this was by changing the composition of prestressing wires in PCCP. Based on the belief that scientific advances meant the steel they were using in the 1970s was much stronger than that used in the 1940, manufactures used thinner wires and less of them.

Between 1972 and 1978, PCCP was produced featuring these reduced quantities of prestressing wires. PCCP was considered as robust and strong as steel pipes at the time and both were meant to have lifespans of 70 to 100 years.

When water companies faced a choice between installing steel pipes or PCCP on their networks, they would nearly always go for the latter due to the cheaper cost involved.

This turned out to be a catastrophic mistake. Less wires meant more stress on the pipe. When overpressure led to the mortar shell cracking, water from the soil surrounding a buried pipe was able to enter.

The thinner prestressing wires used in 1970s PCCP were brittle and more susceptible to corrosion. Once the wires broke, water could seep into other parts of the pipe and it was just a matter of time before the line suddenly and unexpectedly failed.

To say this below specification PCCP is a problem would be an understatement. According to the American Concrete Pressure Pipe Association (ACPPA), 90 of the 100 largest water utility companies in the US use prestressed concrete cylinder pipe on their networks.

Many of these pipelines have already suffered catastrophic bursts. Alarm bells started ringing as early as 1979 when part of a 13 mile PCCP line installed in Florida only a year earlier blew out.

Another explosion occurred in the same line during pressure testing in 1980 with two more failures following over the next 14 years up to 1994, despite the line operating at well below the pressure it was meant to withstand.

After the Florida incident, PCCP standards were dramatically tightened. Pipes produced post-1979 rarely break and modern PCCP now has an overall failure rate of less than four percent – the lowest of any pipe material.

Unfortunately for PCCP, the damage has long been done to its reputation with millions of miles of below-specification pipes criss-crossing the US like ticking time bombs, just waiting to go off.

What makes PCCP bursts so troublesome is the size of the pipes involved. A rupture in a high-pressure line 3.5 metres in diameter has the potential to rapidly lose millions of litres of water, severely impacting on supplies to hundreds of thousands of people.

Irvine, Southern California experienced once such incident in 1999. A PCCP main blowout on the outskirts of the city spilt 22 million litres and left approximately 700,000 residents without water for up to a week.

In response, the water utility company responsible decided to inspect 160 miles of PCCP on their network. They discovered numerous undetected minor leaks and bursts all blamed on deterioration of PCCP.

100 miles of their PCCP network was found to be below specification, requiring repair, replacement or reinforcement. The utility company put the cost at $2.5 billion over 20 to 25 years.

In Washington, the Suburban Sanitary Commission (WSSC) has 350 miles of PCCP that have been prone to exploding without warning. Since 1996, nine mains operated by the WSSC have blown apart.

A 2008 PCCP explosion released a torrent of water that led to motorists being rescued by boat and helicopter from a street in Bethedsa, north of Washington DC.

Three years later and a water main blew out doors and walls in an office park in the town of Capitol Heights, sending a highly pressurised jet of water 40 feet into the air.

The WSSC says cost of replacing sections of PCCP in the densely populated suburbs of Washington would be $2.9 billion. Instead, they have deployed noise loggers as part of a $21.2 million break detection system designed to listen out for prestressing wire snapping.

When enough noises in a section of PCCP are detected, the pipe in question can be isolated to undergo reinforcement or repair before it explodes. The WSSC say they record wires breaking on a daily basis.

Twice since 2007, the situation has been severe enough to necessitate the shutting down of a pipe. Repairs have been accelerated on another 12 sections because of the increased frequency of wire breaks.

On a national scale, repairing or replacing PCCP across the US could cost $40 billion according to a technical assessment carried out by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the American Water Works Association.

Advances in pipe repair technology can help to bring that cost down. Solutions such as epoxies and composite repair wraps can be applied to reinforce pipework, creating a protective sleeve with pressure resistance of up to 30 bar.

Combine such repair methods with improved detection – as well as noise loggers, robots are also being used to inspect pipes – and you have a system that can help to identify and prevent incidents before they happen.

Another solution for reinforcing PCCP involves relining the pipe with steel or ductile iron. Whatever method is used, water companies across the US face time consuming and costly repair and reinforcement projects to make up for the mistakes of the 1970s.

[Sundancefisher]

After reading that it appears the city should slide in a narrower pipe and then start working on future plan B.

Any fixes on this pipe is putting lipstick on a sick pig.

[muirsy]

Originally Posted by Sundancefisher

Good rain in Calgary is very timely. Just need a regular rain for the next 7 weeks.

Great for the gardens & lawns that's for sure!

My understanding is that right now the 'crisis' is a distribution issue rather than a supply issue. Because the Bearspaw line is kapoot right now, the Glenmore treatment plant is feeding the entire city, which normally only does 40% of the workload

[Grizzly Adams1]

Originally Posted by muirsy

Great for the gardens & lawns that's for sure!

My understanding is that right now the 'crisis' is a distribution issue rather than a supply issue. Because the Bearspaw line is kapoot right now, the Glenmore treatment plant is feeding the entire city, which normally only does 40% of the workload

That Glenmore plant is old as the hills as well, built in the 1930s.

[muirsy]

Originally Posted by Grizzly Adams1

That Glenmore plant is old as the hills as well, built in the 1930s.

Yup exactly. Not ideal at all.

[Tungsten,]

There's a company called Liquid Force, I see them in residential areas lining pipes.I once walked up and had a look,you could smell the polyester resin.

The trucks I saw had Ontario plates.

[I’d rather be outdoors]

Jordan Peterson’s take:

https://x.com/jordanbpeterson/status...93538605519179

Pretty accurate.

https://x.com/jordanbpeterson/status...69371300008053

“Try being more compassionate toward the pipe, see if that helps”.