Alberta Insider: Calgary’s water crisis could happen in any of Canada’s largest cities

Hi everyone,

As Alberta scorches under the extreme heat that has enveloped the province and much of Western Canada, Calgary Stampeders are left sweating under their cowboy hats.

With temperatures reaching the mid-30s, probably the most important thing for people to do is grab a nice cold glass of water.

But up until last week, that was a bit of luxury in Alberta’s biggest city. It’s been barely a week since Calgarians were finally able to freely turn on their taps at home to enjoy what most of the country takes for granted.

When Mayor Jyoti Gondek gave city (and some surrounding area) residents the thumbs-up that their drinking water was finally available with no indoor restrictions on usage, there was a collective sigh of relief.

Unfortunately, what happened here could happen in any of Canada’s largest cities.

In an analysis of city infrastructure, The Globe and Mail’s Oliver Moore and Tu Thanh Ha discovered that nearly one-quarter of drinking water pipes in Canada’s largest cities are near the end of their useful life, potentially a major problem for cash-strapped local governments, which would struggle to find the billions needed to inspect, maintain and replace unsound lines.

They examined Canada’s big-city water systems and found that good data about this crucial asset was both incomplete and inconsistent. What was clear through surveying the country’s 10 largest cities and analyzing data from Statistics Canada was that municipalities are falling behind on maintaining and replacing infrastructure.

In Hamilton, two-fifths of the larger transmission pipes are considered in poor or very poor condition, while Winnipeg has double the number of water main breaks per length of pipe as the North American average.

Canada’s largest city, Toronto, is $2-billion behind on the spending needed to keep its system in top condition while in Vancouver, nearly a quarter of the network is in poor shape.

Part of the problem is getting good data however, as monitoring is costly and sporadic.

In Calgary, where the city had reported all of its big pipes were in good or very good condition, the Bearspaw South Feedermain that ruptured last month hadn’t been physically inspected in a decade.

“We’ve got really aging infrastructure in all of our cities that is 50 to 100 years old that needs replacement – and we put it off,” said Robert Haller, executive director of the Canadian Water & Wastewater Association, which advocates to the federal government on behalf of municipal water agencies.

“It’s almost like gambling. Each year, you roll the dice, and you hope you’ll get another year out of your infrastructure. But at some point, you have to replace it. It’s always cheaper to plan a replacement than to let it collapse.”

While the data is incomplete, it is clear that Canada has a problem – and Calgary might be the bellwether pointing to a catastrophe in the making.

This is the weekly Alberta newsletter written by Alberta Bureau Chief Mark Iype. If you’re reading this on the web, or it was forwarded to you from someone else, you can sign up for it and all Globe newsletters here.