Calgary water emergency: Replacement pipe expected for Tuesday as construction continues| FULL

Oki Dada Tic and ton good afternoon everyone as you heard this morning I called upon the city’s chief administrative officer to engage a third party to complete an incident review of this entire situation like all of you I wanted to get to the bottom of what happened CAO David Duckworth has said that the framework for this independent incident review has been created he further said that it will be a panel that includes experts in the water industry water utilities managers academics Engineers as well as other infrastructure experts the private sector and National water industry associations will also be a part of this review and I look forward to the light that this will shine on what led up to the failure of this pipe and how we can prevent anything like this from ever happening again I’d like to thank both CEO Duckworth as well as general manager Michael Thompson for making sure that this review got underway I’d also like to thank the teams at the Glenmore water treatment facility for keeping us in good shape while that facility has been shouldering the load of the city your diligence and your hard work is greatly appreciated by all of us I have some great news on water use in the city yesterday we consumed 450 million lers of water which is well below our threshold and that goes to show that you are doing a great job in joining our neighbors in erre Strathmore chesterr and sutina nation in reducing water usage by a quarter every leader helps and the crews at the Glenmore plant in their efforts to keep a precious supply of water moving throughout the city for all of us a special thank you to The Classy Folks at the San Diego County Water Authority for putting those two lengths of pipe on a truck yesterday those last pipes could be here sooner than expected meaning that the concurrent work on all five hotspots is well underway with regard to the work that’s being done on the active sites we have implemented a process to have crew leads meeting with each other twice a day to discuss lessons learned over the course of their shifts we have also had the learnings from the repairs to the original break come forward so that we can have some suggestions that help us do things quicker while also maintaining the highest standards of safety the very close collaboration between City Crews and our contractor Partners from the private sector has meant that we can move this project forward in a way that is both safe and as quick as it can be you’ll hear more from Michael Thompson in a few minutes about what’s happening on the construction front but first let’s have deputy chief Kobe derer come up and give us an update from the Calgary Emergency Management agency thank you mayor good afternoon I’m happy to be here again while Chief Sue Henry is taking some well earned days off I want to start today by again thanking calgarians for everything you have done to limit water usage my heartfelt gratitude to all of you for pulling together and helping us with this emergency I’d also like to thank our regional partners and Neighbors in the town of Strathmore cities of chesir and arry and sutina Nation our data shows that you’ve been doing well with respect to water reduction and we can’t thank you enough for your efforts we held our line and our of our Target of 450 million L of water consumption for yesterday June 17th as I mentioned yesterday there has been a significant progress made from a repair standpoint the initial site of the large feeder main Brak has been repaired our Focus now turns to repairing the five additional hotspots as soon as safely possible I know the additional traffic impacts will be difficult to navigate and there will be some noise and other impacts but but our focus is to do this quickly safely and efficiently as possible the last few days many C calgarians collected water and that’s been great to see there’s more rain anticipated today and with the warm weather expected over the weekend it would be an excellent time for every calgarian to collect more water where possible to have it ready for plants and Gardens during that warm weather our reminder to cover your containers with a lid of some sort to keep children pets and Wildlife safe and to prevent faster evaporation I want to stress that safety is of the utmost importance calgarians have been accessing the river directly using a variety of containers do not pull water from the river please capture rainwater instead from a p Health standpoint I want to reaffirm that this water is not safe to drink or consume Alberta Health Services provides more details on using nonpotable or rainwater safely on their website to date the City of Calgary Community peace officers have responded to more than 2,000 complaints for individuals or businesses not adhering to stage four water restrictions the overwhelming majority have been to resol have been resolved through education and warnings two tickets have been issued however moving forward unless there are mitigating circumstances the direction to our peace officers is to proceed with ticketing if there is evidence of an offense for someone containg the water restrictions I’ll remind folks that the specific penalty is $3,000 for an offense under the water utility bylaw which speaks to the seriousness of this situation with ongoing updates the media attention to this situation and a number of warnings given to date it would be very difficult to believe that someone is still unaware that they can’t run their sprinklers or fill their pool or wash something Outdoors on their property warnings are meant to educate citizens on bylaw responsibilities to gain further compliance we’re past that point now and consider the warmer weather in the forecast it is critical that everyone adheres to the restrictions as mentioned last week it is clear that the overwhelming majority of calgarians are doing their part and we thank you for thinking about your neighbors and your community by taking steps to conserve water it is because of your efforts that we are able to manage this crisis so thank you and to be clear we are only ticketing those who are either repeat or egregious offenders of the water bylaw now for some stats officers have have had 248 calls since June 6th there have been 560 written warnings issued 709 verbal warnings two violation tickets have been issued to corporations we have had a a total of 128 calls for service regarding the fire ban 99 are pending investigation 14 written warnings have been issued 53 verbal warnings have been issued and four violation tickets have been issued the total number of calls related to this water event to date through 311 is 6,918 to all please continue to do your part to reduce water consumption make every drop count I would now like to bring up m GM Michael Thompson to give us an update on what’s happening around their sites good afternoon every good afternoon everyone I’d like to start off by acknowledging the impacts that the repair work is having on traveling calgarians and thank you for your patience while we complete this important work I’d also like to recognize our construction teams who still have a significant repair ahead of them this is no small job onsite or at home and we all have a role to play I want to thank everyone for working together and doing their part construction activity continues as we strive toward repairing the five hotspots identified and the initial beyond the initial brake location these repairs are taking place 24 hours a day at two new construction areas that are separate from the from the location of the original water feeder main breake pavement removal and excavation at the new locations began yesterday and is expected to be completed today we will also help also begin pipe removal on the hotspots today the hotspots we mentioned are not leaks they are sections of pipe that warrant immediate repair as shared yesterday three sections of the replacement pipe are already in Calgary and I can now share that the sections of pipe from San Diego are expected to arrive in Alberta today to be prepared for installation and will be transported to site when ready many specialized materials are required for this replacement work we are working with various Partners to secure these critical Parts promptly significant detours remain in place on 16th Avenue Northwest and we encourage commuter traffic to plan ahead please visit Calgary doca for the most upto-date information on Friday we communicated that an additional 3 to five weeks are required to support the repair of the hotpots this timeline remains and we are committed to providing an updated schedule for the construction by the end of the week I would also like to thank you now I would also like to let you know that the framework for a full third-party review has been established the review will be undertaken by an external consultant the scope of the review will include but not be limited to understanding the factors that contributed to the original pipe failure current practices for inspection and asset sustainability and recommendations for specific actions to improve water supply resilience the review will be guided by an expert panel from Academia the water industry water utilities management and engineering in and government entities focused on infrastructure and resilience we will provide updates as the review starts and clear timelines for the work have been established our team continues to visit with and provide updates to the businesses and residents that are the most impacted by the construction we’ve been working to minimize the impacts of this construction so businesses can maintain their operations and access for their customers access to all businesses in the area is current being maintained boness and Montgomery businesses are open we encourage you to shop locally and contribute to the community’s recovery I would like to express my gratitude for the amazing businesses and residents navigating construction I would also like to recognize our industry our industry Partners in oil and gas industry who I have been meeting with over the last number of days to share ideas about how to get this repair done as quickly as possible this collaboration truly embod the calgarian way of coming together to get things done I would now like to hand it back to Mayor gond now as you’ve heard crews are working around the clock to get the rest of those hotpots fixed and get water flowing through our feeder man again yesterday we saw Crews tearing up parts of 16th Avenue Northwest and sections of the existing pipe are being cut out as new sections of pipe are being prepared to be dropped down and in installed in their place we are doing everything we can to make sure we shorten the timelines for this repair but we have to make sure that this is all done in a safe Manner and until those hot spots are fixed and water is moving safely through our city through that major transmission line we all need to keep doing our part to save water please keep sharing your water saving tips with me I had an interesting one the other day from a calgarian who’s using a 2 L uh pot bottle to save water that’s uh being run from the shower until it warms up he’s then popped some holes in the top of this and used it to squeeze for hand washing it can also be as simple as turning off the tap while you’re brushing your teeth or you’re washing your hands or you could save dozens of liters by reducing the amount of laundry that you’re doing those are just a few of the ways that we can all save water in Calgary and our surrounding communities and I just want to say keep doing what you’re doing everybody it’s working and we appreciate it I’ll see you tomorrow morning at 8:30 on the live stream and and then we will be back here in the emergency Operation Center at 2: p.m. tomorrow to get more information on the progress of the repair and with that I will pass things over now to Jamie to field questions from the media you mentioned that excuse me that the pipes from San Diego uh will arrive today do you know the location where they’re at right now and roughly what time they they will arrive the pipes from San Diego are currently being trucked uh from California to Alberta they’ll come in uh this evening and we will be sending them to our fabrication shop to be prepared for installation the preparation will take some time we have to sand blast them and epoxy coat them prior to installing them SE are Western Standard um you mentioned that there’s over 2,000 bylaw complaints and I guess um however many more calls about fire and only two tickets so what I’m trying to drill down a little bit like U what kind of calls would these be and what would constitute an AGG violations that war well each one of our bylaw officers our Professionals in their own right they do this day in and day out and they are enforcing bylaws day in and day out the calls would have come in to 311 an egregious uh maybe one that we’ve attended before or somebody who is uh doing something extremely difficult or like filling a big pool or something like that up those are egregious uh ones that the bylaw officers would attend to and so we would ask them to use their discernment on those calls and make sure that they are doing what they need to do to enforce our bylaw so these two tickets that were written were uh for corporate violations they were they were for contracted companies yes cont okay and then as a followup um there’s been a lot of talk about these concrete pipes and design of them since the 70s um I there was a website in England uh you know they’ve been tracking failures on these things over the years apparently similar pipes that failed all across the United States and Europe um there was an article uh by former poague in AR this morning that said that City officials were possibly aware that these things could as far back as 2004 so my question is um in terms of of the overall review are you going to be examining just this particular incident in these hotpots or even be looking at the whole entire city and whether or not um City officials are aware of maybe any other potential hot spots or areas that could become Troublesome in the future these pipes uh have been used across North America and are used in many jurisdictions when we do the review we the specific incident to understand uh what the causes were and to take lessons from that and then we’ll be applying those lessons acoss ourwork anyone else how are those two workers doing from last week thank you for asking about those two workers the first worker uh which was the employee of the City of Calgary has returned to work in a modified capacity and the second contractor is uh as at the last that we have heard is still sitting is still in the hospital thank you everyone

As construction crews continue to work on hot spots of one of Calgary’s main water feeder lines, replacement pipe shipped from San Diego is expected to arrive Tuesday evening according to General Manager of Infrastructure Services Michael Thompson.

“I can now share that the sections of pipe from San Diego are expected to arrive in Alberta today to be prepared for installation and will be transported to site when ready,” Thompson said. However, he added that installation however will not happen immediately.

“The preparation will take some time. We have to sandblast them and epoxy coat them prior to installing them,” Thompson said, stating that the timeline of three to five weeks for repairs currently remains, but that the city is committed to providing an update by the end of the week.

Thompson also commented on the third-party review looking into the burst feeder main has been confirmed. “The scope of the review will include, but not be limited to, understanding the factors that contributed to the original pipe failure, current practices for inspection and asset sustainability and recommendations for specific actions to improve water supply resilience,” he said.

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