Calgary officials pleaded with residents on Jan. 3 to cut shower times and flush less after daily water use rose to 493 million litres — above the 485-million-litre limit needed while the ruptured Bearspaw South Feeder Main is repaired — with the return to work and school looming.
‘We are trending towards the red’
Sue Henry, chief of the Calgary Emergency Management Agency, said the goal remains keeping daily use below 485 million litres until the feeder main, which broke on Dec. 30, is fixed. Instead, Calgarians used 493 million litres on Friday.
“We are trending towards the red,” she said at a Saturday news conference. “We know that Monday will be a big day with people returning to work and to school. We are worried about this.”
She urged residents to shower for three minutes instead of 10, flush only when necessary and run dishwashers and laundry machines only with full loads. “There is power in one minute. Just cutting one minute off of your shower saves up to eight litres of water.” Using water above sustainable levels, she warned, risks taking it away from life-saving services such as fire response — a single house fire can use about 4.5 million litres.
A ‘ticking time bomb’
The Bearspaw South Feeder Main supplies 60 per cent of the treated water for the city of 1.6 million people. This is the second time in a year and a half that it has burst; the summer 2024 rupture prompted months of restrictions, advisories, a state of emergency and, later in that emergency, fines for residents who ignored the rules.
Mayor Jeromy Farkas called the pipe a ticking time bomb that ultimately needs a full overhaul to serve the city’s growing population, and he blamed previous municipal governments for the twice-broken line. “Our council is united,” he said. “We will spare no expense to fix this. Not just for today, not just for tomorrow, but for the next hundred years. Under our council term, we will fix this. And we will fix this for good.”
Farkas said an independent panel reviewing Calgary’s water infrastructure after the 2024 break will present its findings on Jan. 13 — a report he moved up and promised to release in full. “We are absolutely committed to giving Calgarians … the good, the bad and the ugly. If there are hard truths in that report, you will hear them.”
A different break, and a mid-January target
Michael Thompson, the city’s general manager of infrastructure services, showed images of the 2024 rupture and the new one, saying the two breaks are clearly different and the causes remain unclear. “The current break runs horizontally along the pipe from the middle,” he said. “You can see that the break appears to be very clean, and almost like a zipper that opened up the pipe.” Crews are working around the clock and aiming to complete repairs by mid-January.
The political argument continued alongside the repair. Premier Danielle Smith said Friday she would examine whether more provincial oversight of municipal water systems is needed, and blamed the crisis on neglect during former mayor Naheed Nenshi’s tenure; Nenshi, now the Opposition leader, called the accusation “total garbage.”
The conservation push had further to go: city figures showed use climbed again to 504 million litres on Saturday. Boil-water advisories for the neighbourhoods nearest the break were lifted on Jan. 5, and the city eased, then lifted, its restrictions in mid-January once the feeder main returned to service.
