Calgary water main break: Mayor enacts local state of emergency amid repair extension | FULL

for being here and thank you for the important job uh you do keeping calgarians informed uh this is the June 15 8:30 a.m. update from the emergency Operation Center and you’ll hear from mayor joy gandek and also our uh chief of Calgary Emergency Management agency Sue Henry with that I’ll turn it over to the mayor thank you thank you Oki dadaa wasti ton and good morning everyone at 8: a.m. this morning I saw sign the paperwork to declare a local state of emergency for the City of Calgary this is not a decision that was made lightly but as we shared yesterday at 5:00 pm. the investigation of the broken feeder M pipe revealed that there are five more areas that are in need of repairs our city operations team has shared these necessary repairs mean that we are looking at another 3 to 5 weeks before water is Flowing as it normally would in our city that’s 3 to five more weeks of your water conservation efforts and that is difficult to say and I’m sure it’s difficult to hear so Calgary what I can tell you is that if we can make this happen faster we will absolutely make it happen faster and I’m determined to do everything that I can to do so I promise that to you when the news broke yesterday I reached out to talk directly with the premier and the provinal Municipal Affairs Minister and both offered the full support of the province at 8:30 p.m. last night I also met with the provincial government’s Emergency Management cabinet to discuss how the province can support our efforts to resolve this situation as quickly and effectively as possible and I am very grateful to Premier Smith to minister mckyer and the provincial government for their continued support and encouragement to reach out and discuss the situation and give upto-date uh feedback to them every day while the city is reaching out to municipalities across the continent to Source Parts equip and possible expertise I’m also reaching out to the private sector and they have been reaching out to me here in Alberta we have a world leading energy sector and companies ready and willing to discuss Solutions I want to bring our best and brightest to the table and get this issue resolve for calgarians as quickly as possible this is an all Hands-On deck situation restoring your water service is my absolute number one priority I reached out to Industry last night and I look forward to meeting with them in the coming days and making connections so that members of our City Emergency Operations team have a sounding board now I hate to do this to you Calgary but I’m going to have to do it again we are going to need to reduce our water use and I’m relying on you so that we can get through this we have managed to stabilize our use uh because yesterday’s numbers are the same as the ones from Thursday that is good in terms of stabilizing the use but we are still at at that maximum threshold of 480 million lers used I’m going to ask you to do a little bit more every day we’ve also asked our commercial and Industrial uh water users in the city to cut back on their use and today I’m also asking all businesses to consider the ways in which you can reduce your water usage and that can involve allowing many of your employees to work from home if anyone is able to do so I think it would save them the time of having a shower in the morning and no one has to worry about what they look or smell like for that matter I think it’s an interesting solution to offer people the opportunity to work from home and it also means you can manage your flushing at home which you can’t often do at work and I know this sounds a little bit frivolous frivolous or trivial at times to talk about flushing toilets but the truth of the matter is if every household in Calgary did one less toilet flush per day we would save 12 million L of water so it is a lot of water and and it is a way that you can help out and while we are saying thanks today for the rain that’s going to be coming to help our plants our Lawns and our vegetable gardens I thought it would be appropriate to quote my friend from a ay mayor Peter Brown he said this is not a burden we are fortunate to have Taps that we can turn on where fresh water comes out right now we just need to continue to use a little bit less and with that I’m going to turn things over to Calgary Emergency Management agency Chief Sue Henry thank you mayor good morning on June 5th the Calgary Emergency Management agency enacted its Municipal emergency plan and opened the Emergency Operations Center to enhance coordination in the midst of a large feeder main break that has been impacting Citywide and Regional water use since that time we’ve been collaborating with over 60 agency members and partners which include City operations city services and some external Partners our common goal goal is to work together to bring down water use until the feeder m is back in service which we initially thought was days away since that time we have received detailed analysis of the pipe conditions that tell us that the break was catastrophic Additionally the robotic inspection has revealed the need for additional repairs resulting in the need for 3 to 5 weeks of additional water conservation efforts and outdoor water restrictions we’ve seen the complexity of the one fix that we’ve been managing for the last week now that we have five fixes to make this will be a complex undertaking and we need to make sure that we have a smooth path ahead and mitigate as many circumstances as possible this morning at 0800 the City of Calgary declared a state of local emergency to assist us in helping return our water to Service as quickly as possible this work is our top priority as a city and we’re bringing every tool in the toolbox forward to advance and support this massive construction effort and to continue to ensure we have enough water for those critical Life Safety needs under the state of local emergency it allows for coordination of action and is an indicator of the aggressive approach we’re taking to restore water service for all customers as soon as safely possible at this time we are planning for all eventualities and we may need to act quickly and the coordination is integral with for the magnitude of these repairs that are required and the seriousness of this situation the anticipated length of time of this repair is also critical we are working as hard as we can to bring that time line down we know what we need to do and we’re working around the clock to get it done we’re continuing to ask our citizens our businesses and our partners to stay with us to do what we know we must do until we’re back to regular service we will have the regular update for you at 2 p.m. today on the technical side and the work that has been completed and with that I will pass back to the mayor thanks very much Chief I want to once again thank all of you who have been patient and diligent as we issued the call to action to reduce water usage and that is folks in Calgary as well as partnering municipalities like erre Strathmore chesterr and the sutina nation you’re all making a very big difference and you just need to keep at it as I’ve said every small action may feel like it’s not much but it adds up and so thank you for everything you’re doing and please keep it up I’d also like to thank the provincial government again for their willingness to engage and ensure that we know their resources are available to US events like this require strong Partnerships to enable all possible actions that can restore service to the people thank you to all of the Business Leaders who have reached out to me over the last few days offering to both support and act as a sounding board the more we engage people with related experience the better we will a be able to address situation and get things back to normal and my gratitude to the folks in the City of Calgary all of the experts from different areas thank you very much for working around the clock to restore Water Service to the people we see your commitment and dedication in this important work we will have more information as the chief has said on the progress of repairs this afternoon at 2 p.m. right here at the emergency Operation Center and now I’m going to turn things over to Jose right there to field questions from media please questions uh M Gand could could you explain in sort of real simple terms for people uh what the difference is between having not had a state of local emergency and having a state of local emergency what does that allow you to do that you couldn’t do before and if you could explain that pretty simply for people that’s a pretty big set of words yeah the state of local emergency offers um some Powers if you will some abilities that the city ordinarily wouldn’t have and so one of the key issues here is that as we’re doing the repair we are attempting to do those repairs at the same time and so we don’t want to do this in a stage manner we want to expedite things and do them quickly so as we get materials and Equipment coming in there’s going to need to be a staging process around those sites and that staging process could require us to be uh going on to private property so with the state of local emergency in place we will be able toess access the space that we need to do the staging to get the work done yeah supplementary because this is such a you know 3 to 5 weeks is longer than we thought it might be over at Wednesday H how do you plan to get Buy in from people who when they heard the news yesterday were no doubt you know frustrated you know upset how are you going to turn that into uh you know support for the measures you’re calling for like the water conservation in San so what’s your plan to sort of get out get calgarians on board for this longer haul I think it’s incredibly important to make sure that we are speaking with people every day and we are doing that twice a day now to remind people about how we’re performing in terms of our water use to uh let them know that we appreciate everything that they have been doing and to let them know what’s happening with the repairs there was no one more disappointed than me I will tell you to find out yesterday that we were going to have to extend the time it would take to do these repairs and I can tell you the crew at the city did not want to deliver that news but we had to let people know that this was going to take longer because there was more work that needed to be done and I will be here with you trying to exercise the measures to reduce water usage I will be sharing all of your ideas and I’ll talk to you every day and let you know how you’re doing in terms of reducing water use we can do this together we have done many things together in the past we are good at this and so I believe that calgarians will rise to this occasion as they have done on many others sure is this the fact that there are now five hotpots to repair instead of the one or is it that the reservoirs have gone below a third of the capacity or of the levels is that what triggered this state of emergency or it both so as I indicated the state of local emergency was enacted today to give us provision to go onto private property if we need to which I think will absolutely be the case if we’re trying to work on five sites at once um that’s really what led to this the state of local emergency is not linked to the level of water in their reservoirs and with the partnership we have with the provincial government we are looking at every possible solution to get water out of the bepa treatment plant to reservoirs and so there’s two things going on right now one is enacting the St state of local emergency to prepare for any eventualities and the other is the ongoing work to get water into the places it needs to be in those potentially 3 to 5 weeks how realistic do you think it is that we’re going to need to move into other measures aside from just people doing their part on their own it remains to be seen what we need to do in the coming weeks um if folks keep at this in terms of reducing their water use will be in a good place uh we continue to rely on the south Glenmore treatment facility to pump water into many of the reservoirs around our city and so far that’s been working but I know there have been days when uh Supply was too close to demand so we will continue to monitor the situation and once again providing you with daily updates allows you to understand how well you’re doing or when we need to dig in and do a little bit more what was the water usage last night last night’s water usage was the same as uh the day before we are at 480 million lers of water used which is the threshold and I would really like to see that number come down so you know the example that I gave you if in each household we did three less toilet flushes each day we would come down to the numbers we were at last Saturday a week ago when we were at about 440 million lers used that would allow us to have uh that buffer in our supply what measures might you need to take then beyond what are being taken right now if calgarians can’t keep up the water reduction I can tell you that the water team is looking closely at what may need to be done um as we do the 2:00 updates here in in the Emergency Operations Center they are always coming forward with uh things that we might have to enact we continue to listen to them and take their guidance on what might need to be put in place at the present moment I don’t know that there’s anything else that’s coming forward but it’s really important for people to understand that outdoor water restrictions are in place and that means you cannot water your lawn it means you can’t wash your car in your driveway it means don’t think that at midnight you can sneak out and water your garden because no one’s looking you need to know in your soul that you’re using water and right now we need you to please not do that and take advantage of the rain that’s coming everyone get your rain barrels going get your buckets out there get any type of container that you need that will help you through the days that there is no rain so let’s do everything that we can I know that this is all very new but what suggestions do you have for calgarians planning their summer swimming lessons damp that sort of thing I can tell you that we’re doing our best to get this repair done as quickly as possible we are listening to everyone that’s got great ideas we are banding together uh with the provincial government with the private sector to see what we can do to move things as quickly as possible and uh I would speculate that we might be able to do things more quickly because we do have many Partnerships in place but it’s hard to tell so I would tell folks to please keep an eye on websites to know whether swimming lessons are going to move forward uh whether any of the events that you have planned might face A disruption so just stay engaged and stay tuned with uh the information sources that you rely on one more from Mr yeah just just supplementary to that on the events St of course is huge I know you were asked about it yesterday and there was you know not not a lot to say because of the the announcement had just happened um could there be some sort of U adapting that the stamp might have to do if the if the situation was not resolved by the time the uh Stampede was on yeah I’m not in a position to speculate on on what may or may not need to be done into July what I can tell you is that we’ve got really good Partnerships at the city um with many organizations including Calgary Stampede and I’m looking forward to understanding uh their perspective after their meeting here yesterday so I’m not in a position to speculate at this point Thank you folks uh it’s a reminder we are back at 2 o’ in this room and our American Sign Language team will be joining us this afternoon they weren’t able to make it this morning thank you

Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek announced a local state of emergency Saturday, during update on water restrictions brought forth by a damaged feeder main 10 days ago.

“This is an all-hands-on-deck situation,” Gondek told reporters at a news conference, adding that she has been in contact with Premier Danielle Smith and other provincial cabinet ministers about what comes next. She also asked Calgarians to continue reducing their water usage, even suggesting they flush their toilets 1-3 times less per day, to help make a difference.

Though Gondek made it clear that the state of emergency was “not linked to the level of water in the reservoirs,” she said the difficult decision would allow City officials easier access to feeder main sites that require repair.

“The state of local emergency was enacted today to give us permission to go on to private property if we need to, which I think will absolutely be the case if we’re trying to work on five sites at once,” Gondek said.

This comes after Gondek’s disheartening message on Friday, which revealed that rather than an estimated one-week timeline for a complete repair, reconstruction will take up to five weeks due to damage at five other locations of the pipeline.

Calgary has been under strict water restrictions since the feeder main broke on June 5.

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