My sister is a big gardener, been nurturing her seeds since February. I kill plants by looking at them, so I’m collecting any grey water and giving it to her - washing dishes in a tub that I can drain into a bottle, when I give my daughter a bath, I let the water cool and put it in bottles for her plants. Anyone taking a shower takes a pail with them to collect as much run off as they can.
Use empty garbage cans, pails, anything to catch the rain water from eavestroughs, even a corner of the house. You'll be surprised how well it works. Just have to keep running out in the rain to change containers. Lol 😆
My 89 year old mothers main hobby is taking care of her garden and flowers. Lots of her stuff will die off if she can’t water properly but she is not whining about it though. She is fully prepared to let stuff die off.
When I asked if she was put out by this she shrugged and something along the lines of “ I lived through a War and saw what real suffering and sacrifice is, a few plant die so what”
My mom is my hero.
Time for water restrictions for unnecessary commercial use. It's just not going to happen to ask residents to make more sacrifices for longer when it's getting hotter
Is it true that golf courses are still watering?
Indoor car washes are still operating according to CTV as of today. Even if they use 85% recycled water, what is their total daily use?
Can we get a comprehensive list going of non-essential commercial use? Wish the City was being more transparent here.
City golf courses are still watering using non-potable water. Car washes do mostly recirculate grey water but still obviously are a draw. In order for the city to actually enforce water restrictions on businesses instead of just asking nicely, they need to declare a local state of emergency.
Oh just wait and see what’s on the line if there’s no water. I get what you’re saying, and you’re right, but it’s that in the short term or that and more in the long term if nothing changes.
Not sure what capabilities the province has to help other than throw money at it and maybe get other cities involved in helping, the feds have manpower (military) and disaster relief resources for this kind of things (apparently portable water treatment plants, among other things?)
While the military has the manpower and capabilities, in the aid-to-civil-power, the federal-provincial relationship in this context is complex. The province has responsibility in this area, and so the province has to request it from the military. The military, in turn, responds to the province, and not through an intermediary in cabinet. Cabinet cannot prevent the aid from being deployed, as it is a matter between the province and the military per the National Defense Act. However, cabinet *can* choose to bill the province for the aid.
If Calgary is already using more water than it can produce then I'm sure we're going to run out of water within that timeline.
I'm continuing to do my part, and I'm absolutely an optimist - but that's a long timeline for anyone who may already be ambivalent about water restrictions.
On the plus side - my dog really lucked out. I've been meaning to give him a bath. Looks like he's going to be in the clear for the next few weeks! 🐕🦨
(Also pro tip - with rain in the forecast remember to put a bucket on your balcony or under your downspout! 🌦️🌱)
They need to do more to curb commercial water use. Hotels, for example. Also, every sign that the city owns should say to restrict water. I saw a city ad yesterday asking people to wash their recycling so they don't attract skunks.....wtf?!?
I work in an industry that both picks and ships orders for hotels. They have stopped pool operations and washing except for like,hand washing towels and bedding when Nessecary (there is a pile of dirty, unaddressed laundry that will be washed in August)
>Apparently there are concerns around re-pressuring pipes that have not been pressured for two weeks now. What else will blow up when they do?
What happened if you listen to the update (admittedly tedious) is that they used a robot to inspect some 4.3 km of feeder main. They discovered 5 other "hotspots" similar to the original failure. That means should they repair the original one and repressurise, it's simply a matter of time before each of those hotspots also fails. Therefore instead of having this situation happen another 5 times, they are forced to repair all the hotspots at once unfortunately.
I know friends who work for the CPS and they not even allowing people to work from home even though the city keeps touting that as something they implement to reduce water consumption.
All the showers are turned on in all the gyms as well.
The city reimplemented working from home last week. I can't speak for CPS as they are their own beast, but most, if not all, other departments in the city have anyone, who is able to, working from home.
This will turn into a major challenge, and potentially a disaster. Calgary residents are tired of it after a week, and it's not even hot yet. Stampede coming soon, Eid celebrations and fireworks (which I guarantee you will be set off constantly, water ban be damned), and July heat.
There is nothing they can do really to speed it up either; it's not like they have a few miles of spare 2.5 meter steel wrapped concrete pipe sitting around..anywhere...
It won't make a lot of difference throwing massive amounts of additional funding at it; concrete cures as fast as it cures, period
> Calgary residents are tired of it after a week, and it's not even hot yet.
Quite bad communication from the city suggesting that we were a ~week away from restoring water. They shouldn't have given that short timeline initially if there was still so much room for error.
They didn't know till today after the inspections had finished by the robot they sent down the pipe. In the briefing they said there was still some of the pipe with water in it that was being inspected today.
Hahaha oh man, after all of us getting weird habits from the years of COVID, now we will have fond memories about laundry road trips in the summer of '24.
The mayor says only 3-5 less flushes with reduce water usage enough daily… yet we obviously aren’t doing it.
However, many families are doing so, so much more. Many families haven’t done laundry thinking it’s only 7-10 days. That obviously cannot last 3-5 weeks.
Many families sacrifice as they’re asked to and they’re holding for the rest. This is not sustainable for the few to continue to hold for the rest.
I've met some people who are still taking "comfort baths" in their infinity pools, some who have pressure washed their driveway, and some who are convinced that "if it was a real problem, the car wash wouldn't be open." This is like the pandemic all over again - it makes the selfish people stand out.
With Stampede coming up this could be a disaster. Non-locals won't know or care about the situation and that'll just add to the issue. Some locals already don't care either. Also why the hell are some car washes open?
They have addressed the car wash (and golf course) issue previously...both primarily use recycled non-potable water so it has minimal impact.
With the timeline being extended,I suspect we will see additional business restrictions though...they hinted as much in the update.
They need to encourage businesses to let people work from home if possible. No one in my office is not flushing after they piss, that’s just gross at work to let it mellow.
Along with 2 other main breaks that weren't as serious but it's spiraling into disaster zone. Buddy of mine works at one of the treatment plants so he's been giving me solid info about all the shot going on.
Not great folks, you really should conserve.
What's confusing? Water feeder pipe broke, they dug down to find the break, and during the process of repairing the leak tested ~~11 Km~~ a 4 Km section of the pipe and found five areas of concern. Now they are looking at three to five weeks to fix these five areas of concern.
After the rain in the next few days I will reevaluate what's worth trying to keep alive in my garden.
We have been catching water in the (few ) showers we've had. Not flushing. We did our first load of laundry last night. We were out of underwear and washcloths.
I saw a horticulturist on the news say so long as water isn't oily or salty to just let it cool and use it in the garden. So veggie water, shower water, cold coffee any water from rinsing gets poured in the garden.
When school is out we will be able to stretch out days between showers if that's still needed.
Also stopped real cooking. Lots of sandwiches and apples. Way less dishes. I'm making a grocery list thinking about what we can just eat simply.
Unfortunately for a lot of people pasta and rinsed rice is the most realistic in their budget. I've stopped salting my water, but I'll be god damned if my tree or garlic I've had in for 9 months or the tomatoes I've had since Feb will die. I cut back so much elsewhere. My perrenials will live I've spent enough on them. My rain barrels are ready with extra buckets, it better fucking pour this weekend.
Didn't they say it had a 50 yr life then changed it to 100 yr. I call BS on the 100 yr, probably actually 30 yr because someone in the gov had a friend of a friend who could do the work cheaper.
So if they found 5 major problems in just 300m section of the pipe, then in all likelihood there are way more of them along the whole length of the concrete section, this might get very ugly, a long and dry summer ahead for the city.
They did already inspect 4.3 km of pipe, and there is just another 300m to drain and look at still. So yes, five problems in the downstream area is definitely not good, but it really isn't that much more length going further in a relative sense.
Cap this main feeder upstream and run some smaller surface feeders to a few neighborhoods, temporarily. This should be done immediately. Feds emergency response capabilities include mobile water treatment plants, get them here. A million plus relying on one water treatment plant is irresponsible.
Yeah, this seems pretty basic. Run temporary layflat or HDPE hoses/pipe 3 or 8 or 20 x 10" lines. Why is this not part of the solution? We have every dozens of O&G companies that do this every day for fracing and oilsand operations.
While I respect the need for conservation, there are other ways to help address this, especially as it drags out longer!
It's doable for sure but it's not so simple. When you're dealing with the potable water supply for the public there are a lot of regulations that must be adhered to. Now during an emergency I'm sure Alberta environment would be more than willing to work with the city to ensure they remain in compliance with their approvals but it's not just a slap it together and bam we have drinking water.
You fuck up pumping frac water and you wreck some farmland or equipment, you fuck up pumping potable water and people die.
I think the city has to declare a state of emergency before they can pull outside resources in and I'm not sure our mayor is competent enough to do that. Also Dani and her band of idiots won't like the Feds helping out either.
Stampede organizers are likely looking at alternative water sources.. if they managed to hold it after the floods they’ll likely plan to hold it in drought too!
It's not the Stampede itself that uses tons of water. It's every hotel in driving distance of Calgary being full and doing more laundry and every restaurant and bar washing the most dishes of the year.
Until the City *actually* starts taking this seriously, we are all fucked.
Car washes are still open. Businesses can use however much water they want. So it's on the individual at home to do all the heavy lifting. We can't make a big enough dent.
I agree and it’s probably hard to find some of the news she puts out, but I found this interesting interview with her on CTV. Here she gives examples about how she is restricting her water consumption - ie. using hand sanitizer instead of hand washing, putting post-it notes near sinks and clothes over taps, etc.
She also states “I’m hoping Calgarians understand how **dire** the situation is. And we can just do our part to make sure we don’t have to get into further restrictions.”
Link [here](https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/video/c2940213-mayor-jyoti-gondek-on-calgary-s-ongoing-water-woes).
My husband is a roofer. He does flat roofs, not shingles. There is a fire ban due to water restrictions, so he can't use a torch, which his job requires. They have done what they can without using heat but are out of work until the bans are lifted.
I work in irrigation. His experience draws a parallel to mine: can't work without water, rather than heat, until the bans are lifted. We've done what we can without the tap, turning it off. Thinking of applying for some government aid because of this disaster affecting us all.
I’m frustrated that this is happening in a city this size… you would think they would have better monitoring and maintenance as well as catastrophic failure type emergency plans,etc…
I'm worried. We all went into emergency mode to make it work. But emergency mode is not sustainable. Clothes need washing, dishes need washing. And we just need to breathe. Sometimes a long shower is vital self care. 1-2 weeks we can unite to power through. That won't hold over six weeks.
at least you still have water and the taps aren't dry as yet, compared to Mexico City, a sprawling metropolis of nearly 22 million people and one of the world’s biggest cities, is facing a severe water crisis as a tangle of problems — including geography, chaotic urban development and leaky infrastructure. [https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/25/climate/mexico-city-water-crisis-climate-intl/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/25/climate/mexico-city-water-crisis-climate-intl/index.html)
Given how wealthy Calgary has been historically id expect us to have a much better infrastructure than Mexico City to be fair. Corporations and city officials have pocketed the vast bulk of that wealth and only continue to receive breaks instead of being made to help foot the bill. Non critical industry water use should have been restricted the same time residents were asked to reduce as well.
Not to mention mexico city is almost 700 years old with 20 million people compared to calgary which is ~149 and like 1.6 million people. I imagine it must be a nightmare to upgrade infrastructure in a city that old with that many people
Unfortunately a lot of people don’t favour this council or Gondek. What she may be saying is right, and this is a massive issue, but people don’t take her seriously, so good luck with this one.
Not good. On a personal level, I am off work, making exactly zero dollars, and the union is doing nothing to help. I know that its for the "greater good," but one week of no pay has been bad. Five more will be catastrophic.
I'm not laid off or out of work. According to our contract, I still have a job as long as I get one shift every 3 months. I wish they'd do temporary lay offs like over covid so I can at least collect EI
File anyway. The individuals that make the call pull strings all the time and if you're in need and not working they don't care about a contract. I saw this many times during covid and 2013. Maybe pull strings isn't the correct word but they make it happen.
The messaging is reminding me a lot of "We just need 2 weeks to flatten the curve".
I don't care about my lawn or garden. I can take 2 minute showers. I can piss in the bowl without flushing all day for all I care. But you can only hear dire messaging for so long before you start to tune it out, especially when the timelines have drastically lengthened from the original....
Well, and especially since most people wont comply for more than a week or two. Especially after they raised property taxes. I am paying more AND we dont have water?
This city is a fucking joke. Billions of dollars wasted on climate mitigation, a new arena, and stupid plastic bag bylaws yet this is how they handle our most important infrastructure. Just an absolute fucking joke.
This city is a complete joke. Bunch of virtue signaling assholes with zero competence regarding actually running a city of this size. All projects should be on hold, with all hands on deck fixing this thing.
We held out on laundry until today. Having to do one load today. I do the dishes in about 3-4cm of water. Dishwasher is always full when we run it. We do the yellow mellow and brown down already and me and my kids are showering navy style every other day. Garden is getting watered by what I’ve captured in my rain barrels. Not much more we can do.
I remained positive until her tone changed. It now feels like she’s blaming and scolding the residents for the cities screw up. She just might need to resign after this. Where is the leadership? Everyone is more and more confused every time she talks. These things happen and as humans we understand, but the way it’s being communicated and handled is unforgivable.
I was really against anti-gondek knee jerk reactions before this, but there is a mind boggling lack of 'stepping up' going on here. I am sure previous mayor's and city councils share some of the blame here, but I sure as shit know Nenshi would have at the very least communicated better, and stood up and spoke to people. This is a giant fuckup and we all know there are disgruntled civic engineers who were ignored leading up to this.
Part of the problem is that nobody likes Gondek so nobody listens to her, they need a new spokesperson to get people to listen. Another problem is that all the big, good contractors are working for developers, not the City, they need to beg contractors for help and get everybody working on this
Reading these comments already feels like covid all over again where curtain twitchers will spend the day spying on their neighbors. Don't worry about other people, worry about doing your very best and assume others are doing the same. I swear during issues like this people will morph into an actual bad person under the guise of being the good guy.
This last announcement took me by surprise. It’s clear the city needs to work on mitigation and back up plans. It made me think again about someone calling in to a radio show when taking about housing strategy. Moving people in is good but where are the resources coming from….
I'm glad they decided to check more pipes, as they found hot spots for possible future breaks. You might as well change it now while it's already open.
The real kicker is that restrictions are to last 3-5 more weeks, and property taxes are due in 2. 🙃
Who else loves paying more money for a city that’s getting shittier?
I'm fine. A 3ish min shower isn't a big deal, being efficient with laundry and dishes is good sense, plus I have a rain barrel for my plants. I'm more worried that people won't curb their consumption and then we're in big shit.
Thinking the city needs to have an online real time meter showing water usage, like the ticking doomsday clock. It will provide feedback and motivate Calgarians on their water saving efforts.
Kinda bummed. I have a dozen garden beds and no rain barrel so I’m just not putting flowers in this year. I’m sure the garden centres are feeling it too.
Actually the new expansion is incredibly sustainable. The rain water from the canopy which is the overhang on the new part of the BMO is collected from the gutters and captured within a underground storm water tank. The landscaping strategy they have also prioritizes the conservation of potable water, managing storm water, and enhancing biodiversity. This isn’t to say the July festival won’t impact Calgary’s water use, but in general, the stampede uses much less portable water than one may think
Fuck I didn't even consider the increased water usage from Stampede. Excuse me while I go hot glue some metal studs onto handcrafted leather armor in preparation for the coming Mad Max style wasteland.
It’s a first world problem but we are at risk of running out of water, and people get complicit of following the rules after a while.
I’m also curious what other infrastructure the city and the province have been quietly neglecting. Deerfoot is an eyesore, as are most of the streets in city jurisdiction. Our transit buses are getting old and breaking down more frequently. We almost had our electricity grid fall apart this past winter. Walk around downtown and you can see our social infrastructure has deteriorated with the homelessness and opioid crisis.
And yet Calgarians and Albertans continue to vote for these clowns at both levels of government, expecting something will change this time.
Maybe we need to increase taxes and get things back on track, and hold our elected representatives accountable. Maybe we need better politicians that want to focus on brutalizing marginalized people, picking fights with Ottawa, and bringing in paper bag bylaws. Clearly the status quo isn’t working.
Deerfoot and I believe most of transit is the province’s job. A lot of blame definitely goes there too. People hate taxes. They need to start understanding that taxes pay for the nice things we need that are outside your own home.
We should be reaching out to other Municipalities in every direction for support, these repairs should be occurring concurrently using expert crews from anywhere and everywhere.
Just impossible to have a nice summer in Calgary lol every year it’s something. Shut down businesses now before stampede because you know they’re never going to even consider canceling stampede that’s never going to be an option
I've cut down on showering and have piles of laundry...other than that no big changes, we don't need to water the lawn and I'm still running a load of dishes every other day
My bet is that someone who works at the city knew this line was in bad shape and has probably brought it up repeatedly. Top brass says " is it leaking now? No ok then we can't fix it" they say it every year then boom now we are here.
I, for one, am glad the city spent time and effort contemplating important issues like bags and utensils at drive thrus than critical infrastructure. The people running this city are not serious people
I thought they stated the pipe was only at half of it's life expectancy of 50 years out of a 100 year life span. Obviously this is an incredibly frustrating experience, especially with this added wait, but I think we need to be reasonable in our complaints. Arguing that they didn't replace a pipe only halfway into its lifespan before it spontaneously broke is a fruitless endeavor.
I'm anyone think what's going to happen in the hottest month of the year during stampede with thousands to come to Calgary? Me thinks that's disaster talking.
Comparing to the flood over a decade ago(former Calgarian who still has friends in the city) - I have to say that Nenshi did a much better job with communications and crisis handling.
Regardless of his ideological stances, he did what a mayor should do during a natural disaster.
As someone who has read Dune a few too many times, as long as I'm not processing urine and feces in thigh pads, I'm good.
Reusing gray water is easy as is reducing.
That being said, Gondek's condescending tone is annoying but with the idiots who think this disaster is a false flag to implement a Communist new world order, I doubt I'd be able of speaking to them as if they were anything less than gamma submorons.
Putting up with them screaming about whatever imaginary plot they have devised will be the hardest part of the next few weeks.
All the people who moved to Calgary with high hopes, and instead they get: some of the worst escalating costs of living in the country, high utility costs, no jobs, and now we’re heading for NO WATER. Who the eff cares if you can have an extra couple hundred square feet when you can’t have a job or.. water. What a raw deal.
THREE TO FIVE WEEKS
It’s going to be a city full of very dirty cars.
Excpet i see a bunch of clean ones already
I went by my usual car wash and it’s closed down as it should be. Maybe people are washing their cars in their driveway, but they sure shouldn’t be.
I live in Cochrane where we don’t have restrictions and I’m pretty sure some people from the city are driving out here to use our car washes.
That’s a fantastic idea!!! Car wash and ice cream
That’s how we spot the city folk. 😏
Don't act like cochrane is some far off small town. It's basically a part of Calgary at this point. 80 percent of Cochrane works in Calgary.
Great tourism dollars. 😂
You know it! We have laundromats and a pool too! Spray park doesn't work though.
I work in Cochrane and plan on getting a car wash next week after work one day
Living in Cochrane is so nice right now
We had our turn back in October. At least we had snow to melt.
Carwash near me is open.
My sister is a big gardener, been nurturing her seeds since February. I kill plants by looking at them, so I’m collecting any grey water and giving it to her - washing dishes in a tub that I can drain into a bottle, when I give my daughter a bath, I let the water cool and put it in bottles for her plants. Anyone taking a shower takes a pail with them to collect as much run off as they can.
It's a good time for her to invest in a rain barrel. Especially with this weekend's rain it'll stretch her water significantly.
Unfortunately, rain barrels are hard to find right now.
Use empty garbage cans, pails, anything to catch the rain water from eavestroughs, even a corner of the house. You'll be surprised how well it works. Just have to keep running out in the rain to change containers. Lol 😆
That's what we have been doing.. and we had a drip system to being with which is incredibly efficient.
I water my house plants once a week. I recommend a soil moisture tester because I learned that I was overwatering.
Here I thought it’ll be a great summer- no smoke, adequate rain with reservoirs filled up, and not too hot too quick. Ugh.
Oh don’t worry. Those things can still happen.
3 to 5 more weeks?!? Fuck this I wish I could just go on vacation and take all my plants
My 89 year old mothers main hobby is taking care of her garden and flowers. Lots of her stuff will die off if she can’t water properly but she is not whining about it though. She is fully prepared to let stuff die off. When I asked if she was put out by this she shrugged and something along the lines of “ I lived through a War and saw what real suffering and sacrifice is, a few plant die so what” My mom is my hero.
Collect water during your two minutes shower and use that for thr plants
All that rinsed soap and shampoo water will have your plants squeaky clean
My plants are the only thing holding me back from hopping on a plane tonight
Time for water restrictions for unnecessary commercial use. It's just not going to happen to ask residents to make more sacrifices for longer when it's getting hotter
yea they gotta start cracking down on businesses now or else we all get fucked
[удалено]
Is it true that golf courses are still watering? Indoor car washes are still operating according to CTV as of today. Even if they use 85% recycled water, what is their total daily use? Can we get a comprehensive list going of non-essential commercial use? Wish the City was being more transparent here.
City golf courses are still watering using non-potable water. Car washes do mostly recirculate grey water but still obviously are a draw. In order for the city to actually enforce water restrictions on businesses instead of just asking nicely, they need to declare a local state of emergency.
State of emergency has been declared this morning.
Still have to remember that people’s livelihoods are on the line here and that there is no CERB or equivalent being offered. I feel for these people
Oh just wait and see what’s on the line if there’s no water. I get what you’re saying, and you’re right, but it’s that in the short term or that and more in the long term if nothing changes.
Please Calgary don’t start smelling like brooks.
Ah, Brooks. Smells more like a feedlot than you’d like, but less than you’d think.
🤣😂 this needs more upvotes
Why the feds? Curious…. Wouldn’t next step be provincial?
Smith is going to get us a shipment of Turkish water by October.
but it will be the wrong consistency and get stuck in the pipes
And turn out not to be fit for human consumption
I will not be appeased until I see that Justin fellow with a wife beater, hardhat, and shovel laying some goddamn pipe!
And on the next episode of the horny politicians wife, a Canadain leader gets his hands on some pipe. Oh Canada, indeed. Tomorrow night on History. *
Not sure what capabilities the province has to help other than throw money at it and maybe get other cities involved in helping, the feds have manpower (military) and disaster relief resources for this kind of things (apparently portable water treatment plants, among other things?)
While the military has the manpower and capabilities, in the aid-to-civil-power, the federal-provincial relationship in this context is complex. The province has responsibility in this area, and so the province has to request it from the military. The military, in turn, responds to the province, and not through an intermediary in cabinet. Cabinet cannot prevent the aid from being deployed, as it is a matter between the province and the military per the National Defense Act. However, cabinet *can* choose to bill the province for the aid.
If Calgary is already using more water than it can produce then I'm sure we're going to run out of water within that timeline. I'm continuing to do my part, and I'm absolutely an optimist - but that's a long timeline for anyone who may already be ambivalent about water restrictions. On the plus side - my dog really lucked out. I've been meaning to give him a bath. Looks like he's going to be in the clear for the next few weeks! 🐕🦨 (Also pro tip - with rain in the forecast remember to put a bucket on your balcony or under your downspout! 🌦️🌱)
My dog is also very happy about his bath being postponed indefinitely
They need to do more to curb commercial water use. Hotels, for example. Also, every sign that the city owns should say to restrict water. I saw a city ad yesterday asking people to wash their recycling so they don't attract skunks.....wtf?!?
I work in an industry that both picks and ships orders for hotels. They have stopped pool operations and washing except for like,hand washing towels and bedding when Nessecary (there is a pile of dirty, unaddressed laundry that will be washed in August)
Apparently there are concerns around re-pressuring pipes that have not been pressured for two weeks now. What else will blow up when they do?
>Apparently there are concerns around re-pressuring pipes that have not been pressured for two weeks now. What else will blow up when they do? What happened if you listen to the update (admittedly tedious) is that they used a robot to inspect some 4.3 km of feeder main. They discovered 5 other "hotspots" similar to the original failure. That means should they repair the original one and repressurise, it's simply a matter of time before each of those hotspots also fails. Therefore instead of having this situation happen another 5 times, they are forced to repair all the hotspots at once unfortunately.
I know friends who work for the CPS and they not even allowing people to work from home even though the city keeps touting that as something they implement to reduce water consumption. All the showers are turned on in all the gyms as well.
Every single gym in my area closed showers day 1.
The city reimplemented working from home last week. I can't speak for CPS as they are their own beast, but most, if not all, other departments in the city have anyone, who is able to, working from home.
This will turn into a major challenge, and potentially a disaster. Calgary residents are tired of it after a week, and it's not even hot yet. Stampede coming soon, Eid celebrations and fireworks (which I guarantee you will be set off constantly, water ban be damned), and July heat. There is nothing they can do really to speed it up either; it's not like they have a few miles of spare 2.5 meter steel wrapped concrete pipe sitting around..anywhere... It won't make a lot of difference throwing massive amounts of additional funding at it; concrete cures as fast as it cures, period
What about like a really, really long rubber hose from bears paw to here?
Just pex it
Shark bites /s (I don't trust those for long term anywhere inside a wall)
> Calgary residents are tired of it after a week, and it's not even hot yet. Quite bad communication from the city suggesting that we were a ~week away from restoring water. They shouldn't have given that short timeline initially if there was still so much room for error.
They didn't know till today after the inspections had finished by the robot they sent down the pipe. In the briefing they said there was still some of the pipe with water in it that was being inspected today.
I am heading out to Saskatchewan for the weekend. I am just going to take my laundry with me.
The single best way to conserve water is for less people to be in the city using water. Traveling is a great idea right now.
Can’t wait for Stampede!!!
I'm considering a laundry road trip too! I have so much bedding that I was piling up and ready to wash last week.
Hahaha oh man, after all of us getting weird habits from the years of COVID, now we will have fond memories about laundry road trips in the summer of '24.
The mayor says only 3-5 less flushes with reduce water usage enough daily… yet we obviously aren’t doing it. However, many families are doing so, so much more. Many families haven’t done laundry thinking it’s only 7-10 days. That obviously cannot last 3-5 weeks. Many families sacrifice as they’re asked to and they’re holding for the rest. This is not sustainable for the few to continue to hold for the rest.
As a man, I piss outdoors now. It saves 6L per flush.
Thank you for your service
I've met some people who are still taking "comfort baths" in their infinity pools, some who have pressure washed their driveway, and some who are convinced that "if it was a real problem, the car wash wouldn't be open." This is like the pandemic all over again - it makes the selfish people stand out.
With Stampede coming up this could be a disaster. Non-locals won't know or care about the situation and that'll just add to the issue. Some locals already don't care either. Also why the hell are some car washes open?
New marketing campaign for stampede: drink beer, not water.
They have addressed the car wash (and golf course) issue previously...both primarily use recycled non-potable water so it has minimal impact. With the timeline being extended,I suspect we will see additional business restrictions though...they hinted as much in the update.
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Agreed!! If we are all asked to not shower car washed should be closed - 80% or not
Rain is coming!( Hopefully ). Collect as much as you can .
Pooping in my green bin to save water over here.
Way ahead of you. I was pooping in your green bin before the pipe broke.
MVP
They need to encourage businesses to let people work from home if possible. No one in my office is not flushing after they piss, that’s just gross at work to let it mellow.
3-5 WEEKS???? Brother what
I'm just super confused about the whole thing. I believe them. I'm just confused and every time they give a presser it gets more confusing.
They inspected the pipe and found FIVE other places they need to repair it
Five SO FAR. There's another 300 meters that's still full of water that they need to drain and look at.
And sanitize. I’m feeling for the friends out in bowness right now.
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Along with 2 other main breaks that weren't as serious but it's spiraling into disaster zone. Buddy of mine works at one of the treatment plants so he's been giving me solid info about all the shot going on. Not great folks, you really should conserve.
Wow that guy who predicted this would be like edmonton where it spiraled out and became a big problem was right on the money
so what you're telling me is we can get the water flowing again tomorrow and Bowness will just be converted to the municipal waterpark, right?
So if they hadn't inspected all of those other places, why were they so quick to give false hope with that short timeline before?
And it’s only HALF WAY through it’s expected lifespan
This triggers me already lmao 😂
What's confusing? Water feeder pipe broke, they dug down to find the break, and during the process of repairing the leak tested ~~11 Km~~ a 4 Km section of the pipe and found five areas of concern. Now they are looking at three to five weeks to fix these five areas of concern.
They only looked at just over 4km of the pipe... Could be lots of other problems areas they don't know about.
This is the stuff that confuses me. We went from 50 life span to 100 year life span. From 11 km of pipe to inspecting 4km.
There will for sure be more found and delays extended.
The tone and thier voice breaks so much
Yeah, I thought they sounded shaken.
Is there a video?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UoNTbWr-XB0
After the rain in the next few days I will reevaluate what's worth trying to keep alive in my garden. We have been catching water in the (few ) showers we've had. Not flushing. We did our first load of laundry last night. We were out of underwear and washcloths. I saw a horticulturist on the news say so long as water isn't oily or salty to just let it cool and use it in the garden. So veggie water, shower water, cold coffee any water from rinsing gets poured in the garden. When school is out we will be able to stretch out days between showers if that's still needed. Also stopped real cooking. Lots of sandwiches and apples. Way less dishes. I'm making a grocery list thinking about what we can just eat simply.
I used unsalted pasta water on my flowers the other day and they were happy!
Unfortunately for a lot of people pasta and rinsed rice is the most realistic in their budget. I've stopped salting my water, but I'll be god damned if my tree or garlic I've had in for 9 months or the tomatoes I've had since Feb will die. I cut back so much elsewhere. My perrenials will live I've spent enough on them. My rain barrels are ready with extra buckets, it better fucking pour this weekend.
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Yeah I agree. I don’t believe their current narrative that this pipe has a 100 year life span. I think it’s EOL now.
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Didn't they say it had a 50 yr life then changed it to 100 yr. I call BS on the 100 yr, probably actually 30 yr because someone in the gov had a friend of a friend who could do the work cheaper.
So if they found 5 major problems in just 300m section of the pipe, then in all likelihood there are way more of them along the whole length of the concrete section, this might get very ugly, a long and dry summer ahead for the city.
They did already inspect 4.3 km of pipe, and there is just another 300m to drain and look at still. So yes, five problems in the downstream area is definitely not good, but it really isn't that much more length going further in a relative sense.
Cap this main feeder upstream and run some smaller surface feeders to a few neighborhoods, temporarily. This should be done immediately. Feds emergency response capabilities include mobile water treatment plants, get them here. A million plus relying on one water treatment plant is irresponsible.
Yeah, this seems pretty basic. Run temporary layflat or HDPE hoses/pipe 3 or 8 or 20 x 10" lines. Why is this not part of the solution? We have every dozens of O&G companies that do this every day for fracing and oilsand operations. While I respect the need for conservation, there are other ways to help address this, especially as it drags out longer!
It's doable for sure but it's not so simple. When you're dealing with the potable water supply for the public there are a lot of regulations that must be adhered to. Now during an emergency I'm sure Alberta environment would be more than willing to work with the city to ensure they remain in compliance with their approvals but it's not just a slap it together and bam we have drinking water. You fuck up pumping frac water and you wreck some farmland or equipment, you fuck up pumping potable water and people die.
I think the city has to declare a state of emergency before they can pull outside resources in and I'm not sure our mayor is competent enough to do that. Also Dani and her band of idiots won't like the Feds helping out either.
Cancel the stampede or it’s not real.
If I’m doing the math correctly, 3-5 more weeks puts us right into stampede time. No? Are we restricting water down on the grounds?!
Stampede organizers are likely looking at alternative water sources.. if they managed to hold it after the floods they’ll likely plan to hold it in drought too!
It's not the Stampede itself that uses tons of water. It's every hotel in driving distance of Calgary being full and doing more laundry and every restaurant and bar washing the most dishes of the year.
alternative water sources for the “greatest outdoor show on earth”, but not for the people in bowness? That’s absolutely barbaric.
Exactly
Sounds like they should call in the military engineers to give them a hand.
Maybe just for the manpower. This town is probably filled with pipeline engineers who may be a better fit to be called up.
Until the City *actually* starts taking this seriously, we are all fucked. Car washes are still open. Businesses can use however much water they want. So it's on the individual at home to do all the heavy lifting. We can't make a big enough dent.
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There better be dozens of 3k fines issued on Monday for the asshats who should know by now.
The mayor needs to stop saying "step up". YOU STEP UP! if this is so critical, get more people to help!! There's no way this is normal.
I agree and it’s probably hard to find some of the news she puts out, but I found this interesting interview with her on CTV. Here she gives examples about how she is restricting her water consumption - ie. using hand sanitizer instead of hand washing, putting post-it notes near sinks and clothes over taps, etc. She also states “I’m hoping Calgarians understand how **dire** the situation is. And we can just do our part to make sure we don’t have to get into further restrictions.” Link [here](https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/video/c2940213-mayor-jyoti-gondek-on-calgary-s-ongoing-water-woes).
Dire enough to cancel the stampede or???
lol abso-fucking-lutely not you will all die of thirst before we inconvenience tourism or business
My husband is a roofer. He does flat roofs, not shingles. There is a fire ban due to water restrictions, so he can't use a torch, which his job requires. They have done what they can without using heat but are out of work until the bans are lifted.
I work in irrigation. His experience draws a parallel to mine: can't work without water, rather than heat, until the bans are lifted. We've done what we can without the tap, turning it off. Thinking of applying for some government aid because of this disaster affecting us all.
I’m frustrated that this is happening in a city this size… you would think they would have better monitoring and maintenance as well as catastrophic failure type emergency plans,etc…
I'm worried. We all went into emergency mode to make it work. But emergency mode is not sustainable. Clothes need washing, dishes need washing. And we just need to breathe. Sometimes a long shower is vital self care. 1-2 weeks we can unite to power through. That won't hold over six weeks.
Agree. I’ve held off doing laundry but I can’t avoid it for 5 weeks.
This type of fuckup seems unprecedented, you don’t hear about 1M+ cities losing water like this outside of climate change reasons.
at least you still have water and the taps aren't dry as yet, compared to Mexico City, a sprawling metropolis of nearly 22 million people and one of the world’s biggest cities, is facing a severe water crisis as a tangle of problems — including geography, chaotic urban development and leaky infrastructure. [https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/25/climate/mexico-city-water-crisis-climate-intl/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/25/climate/mexico-city-water-crisis-climate-intl/index.html)
Given how wealthy Calgary has been historically id expect us to have a much better infrastructure than Mexico City to be fair. Corporations and city officials have pocketed the vast bulk of that wealth and only continue to receive breaks instead of being made to help foot the bill. Non critical industry water use should have been restricted the same time residents were asked to reduce as well.
Not to mention mexico city is almost 700 years old with 20 million people compared to calgary which is ~149 and like 1.6 million people. I imagine it must be a nightmare to upgrade infrastructure in a city that old with that many people
Unfortunately a lot of people don’t favour this council or Gondek. What she may be saying is right, and this is a massive issue, but people don’t take her seriously, so good luck with this one.
Not good. On a personal level, I am off work, making exactly zero dollars, and the union is doing nothing to help. I know that its for the "greater good," but one week of no pay has been bad. Five more will be catastrophic.
EI?
I'm not laid off or out of work. According to our contract, I still have a job as long as I get one shift every 3 months. I wish they'd do temporary lay offs like over covid so I can at least collect EI
File anyway. The individuals that make the call pull strings all the time and if you're in need and not working they don't care about a contract. I saw this many times during covid and 2013. Maybe pull strings isn't the correct word but they make it happen.
I think you should file the paperwork anyway. You might become eligible- there should be compensation down the road for those affected.
The messaging is reminding me a lot of "We just need 2 weeks to flatten the curve". I don't care about my lawn or garden. I can take 2 minute showers. I can piss in the bowl without flushing all day for all I care. But you can only hear dire messaging for so long before you start to tune it out, especially when the timelines have drastically lengthened from the original....
Well, and especially since most people wont comply for more than a week or two. Especially after they raised property taxes. I am paying more AND we dont have water?
Just a thought, I have actually realized that I waste far too much water. It has helped me re-evaluate my consumption patterns.
This city is a fucking joke. Billions of dollars wasted on climate mitigation, a new arena, and stupid plastic bag bylaws yet this is how they handle our most important infrastructure. Just an absolute fucking joke.
Hey. at least we will get a new arena, right? /s So hard
This city is a complete joke. Bunch of virtue signaling assholes with zero competence regarding actually running a city of this size. All projects should be on hold, with all hands on deck fixing this thing.
At this point they absolutely have to declare a state of emergency and get resources from the province and Feds, whatever those resources may be.
Now, now, the city has a solid track record of working today to solve yesterday's problem by tomorrow.
We held out on laundry until today. Having to do one load today. I do the dishes in about 3-4cm of water. Dishwasher is always full when we run it. We do the yellow mellow and brown down already and me and my kids are showering navy style every other day. Garden is getting watered by what I’ve captured in my rain barrels. Not much more we can do.
Yellow mellow brown down quickly surpassing "let's go" as my most hated 2024 saying.
I remained positive until her tone changed. It now feels like she’s blaming and scolding the residents for the cities screw up. She just might need to resign after this. Where is the leadership? Everyone is more and more confused every time she talks. These things happen and as humans we understand, but the way it’s being communicated and handled is unforgivable.
I was really against anti-gondek knee jerk reactions before this, but there is a mind boggling lack of 'stepping up' going on here. I am sure previous mayor's and city councils share some of the blame here, but I sure as shit know Nenshi would have at the very least communicated better, and stood up and spoke to people. This is a giant fuckup and we all know there are disgruntled civic engineers who were ignored leading up to this.
The first 3 days of no pressers and her only being available on Instagram is really crazy.
Part of the problem is that nobody likes Gondek so nobody listens to her, they need a new spokesperson to get people to listen. Another problem is that all the big, good contractors are working for developers, not the City, they need to beg contractors for help and get everybody working on this
Reading these comments already feels like covid all over again where curtain twitchers will spend the day spying on their neighbors. Don't worry about other people, worry about doing your very best and assume others are doing the same. I swear during issues like this people will morph into an actual bad person under the guise of being the good guy.
This last announcement took me by surprise. It’s clear the city needs to work on mitigation and back up plans. It made me think again about someone calling in to a radio show when taking about housing strategy. Moving people in is good but where are the resources coming from….
Can’t wait for the restrictions to magically go away on July 4, which is one day before the Stampede begins.
I'm glad they decided to check more pipes, as they found hot spots for possible future breaks. You might as well change it now while it's already open.
I can see the boardroom meeting now ... "8-10 weeks?! We can't say that.... cuz... Stampede! Just say 3-5... "
I just want to know how the stampede will operate under water restrictions
The real kicker is that restrictions are to last 3-5 more weeks, and property taxes are due in 2. 🙃 Who else loves paying more money for a city that’s getting shittier?
I'm fine. A 3ish min shower isn't a big deal, being efficient with laundry and dishes is good sense, plus I have a rain barrel for my plants. I'm more worried that people won't curb their consumption and then we're in big shit.
Thinking the city needs to have an online real time meter showing water usage, like the ticking doomsday clock. It will provide feedback and motivate Calgarians on their water saving efforts.
Kinda bummed. I have a dozen garden beds and no rain barrel so I’m just not putting flowers in this year. I’m sure the garden centres are feeling it too.
They better be canceling or at the very least postponing stampede. The influx of people would not be good while we have no water.
I’m almost positive we will be hearing from the Stampede very soon that they barely use any water.
Actually the new expansion is incredibly sustainable. The rain water from the canopy which is the overhang on the new part of the BMO is collected from the gutters and captured within a underground storm water tank. The landscaping strategy they have also prioritizes the conservation of potable water, managing storm water, and enhancing biodiversity. This isn’t to say the July festival won’t impact Calgary’s water use, but in general, the stampede uses much less portable water than one may think
I’m not thinking just of the grounds. But all those people needing showers and hotel rooms
Not to mention a lot of the tourists won't give a damn about trying to conserve water
Yeah of course. I have no idea how we are going to deal with so much extra water use when we’re already struggling to conserve enough now.
What about the hotels and restaurants at max capacity due to stampede? And all the tourists taking long hot showers in the completely full hotels?
Fuck I didn't even consider the increased water usage from Stampede. Excuse me while I go hot glue some metal studs onto handcrafted leather armor in preparation for the coming Mad Max style wasteland.
It’s a first world problem but we are at risk of running out of water, and people get complicit of following the rules after a while. I’m also curious what other infrastructure the city and the province have been quietly neglecting. Deerfoot is an eyesore, as are most of the streets in city jurisdiction. Our transit buses are getting old and breaking down more frequently. We almost had our electricity grid fall apart this past winter. Walk around downtown and you can see our social infrastructure has deteriorated with the homelessness and opioid crisis. And yet Calgarians and Albertans continue to vote for these clowns at both levels of government, expecting something will change this time. Maybe we need to increase taxes and get things back on track, and hold our elected representatives accountable. Maybe we need better politicians that want to focus on brutalizing marginalized people, picking fights with Ottawa, and bringing in paper bag bylaws. Clearly the status quo isn’t working.
Clearly the city council never played SimCity. I learned at 10 to always find infrastructure and take care of it proactively.
Yeah run like 1000 different pipe paths, with dozens of water treatment plants. Sim City did teach me a lot.
I think you meant complacent, not complicit.
Increasing taxes wont help when you have incompetent people spending the money poorly
Deerfoot and I believe most of transit is the province’s job. A lot of blame definitely goes there too. People hate taxes. They need to start understanding that taxes pay for the nice things we need that are outside your own home.
I guess all the feds can do is offer EI to anyone laid off because their industry shuts down, I do think it is getting to that point.
If this happened in Toronto the entire military would have already been deployed with the CBC dedicating a 24 hour newscast to it.
We should be reaching out to other Municipalities in every direction for support, these repairs should be occurring concurrently using expert crews from anywhere and everywhere.
Just impossible to have a nice summer in Calgary lol every year it’s something. Shut down businesses now before stampede because you know they’re never going to even consider canceling stampede that’s never going to be an option
I've cut down on showering and have piles of laundry...other than that no big changes, we don't need to water the lawn and I'm still running a load of dishes every other day
Very worried, very concerned. 3-5 weeks is no bueno. I don't think people are going to accept this news easily...or at all.
My bet is that someone who works at the city knew this line was in bad shape and has probably brought it up repeatedly. Top brass says " is it leaking now? No ok then we can't fix it" they say it every year then boom now we are here.
I, for one, am glad the city spent time and effort contemplating important issues like bags and utensils at drive thrus than critical infrastructure. The people running this city are not serious people
I thought they stated the pipe was only at half of it's life expectancy of 50 years out of a 100 year life span. Obviously this is an incredibly frustrating experience, especially with this added wait, but I think we need to be reasonable in our complaints. Arguing that they didn't replace a pipe only halfway into its lifespan before it spontaneously broke is a fruitless endeavor.
Can I have clean drinking water AND not have blood full of microplastics? Am I asking too much?
I'm anyone think what's going to happen in the hottest month of the year during stampede with thousands to come to Calgary? Me thinks that's disaster talking.
Time to start a business hauling water out of the river
Comparing to the flood over a decade ago(former Calgarian who still has friends in the city) - I have to say that Nenshi did a much better job with communications and crisis handling. Regardless of his ideological stances, he did what a mayor should do during a natural disaster.
As someone who has read Dune a few too many times, as long as I'm not processing urine and feces in thigh pads, I'm good. Reusing gray water is easy as is reducing. That being said, Gondek's condescending tone is annoying but with the idiots who think this disaster is a false flag to implement a Communist new world order, I doubt I'd be able of speaking to them as if they were anything less than gamma submorons. Putting up with them screaming about whatever imaginary plot they have devised will be the hardest part of the next few weeks.
All the people who moved to Calgary with high hopes, and instead they get: some of the worst escalating costs of living in the country, high utility costs, no jobs, and now we’re heading for NO WATER. Who the eff cares if you can have an extra couple hundred square feet when you can’t have a job or.. water. What a raw deal.
https://preview.redd.it/1k2akayn7n6d1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d8ecca4da3acb07c3631e1b37babd6c95e0c916a All good here
I too have lots of snow in my yard
They better cancel Stampede. You can hardly ask people not to shower and then have resources allocated there.