Councillor says Calgary being pressured to act too quickly after catastrophic pipe breaks
CBC
Days after Calgary’s mayor urged sparing no expense to build a replacement water main due to a pair of catastrophic breaks in 18 months, one city councillor is advising caution.
An independent panel report was released last Wednesday. Council peppered the panel with questions late into the night in a marathon session before voting unanimously to begin work on the recommendations.
City administration will now report back to council early next month on how to implement the report’s suggestions. The panel recommended an accelerated timeline to build a replacement pipe as well as a dedicated water utility department to better manage the system.
But Ward 2 Coun. Jennifer Wyness stressed that council can't ignore doing its due diligence to ensure it's not making decisions that will prove to be too costly for Calgarians in the long run, just because the water system is currently in crisis.
Her comments came as Calgary still has water restrictions in place after the Bearspaw line ruptured again on Dec. 30, leading to significant flooding in the city's northwest.
“This infrastructure was installed between 1930 and the 1970s, and it’s all blowing up across North America. So let’s get it right,” Wyness said.
The call to accelerate twinning the Bearspaw feeder main could lead to errors if the city doesn’t take the proper time to plan for disruptions and for where the new pipe would be built, Wyness added.
She said she's worried council is being pressured to act too quickly, and that the city will be criticized even more if it rushes a new pipe's construction leading to unnecessary costs or future breaks that stem from poor planning.
Now also isn't the right time to discuss introducing a new water utility department, Wyness said.
“You do not start making organizational decisions during a failure of infrastructure,” Wyness said.
“You have to get the pipe up and running, start providing water to the region, before you start debating what the next step is or going on a witch hunt on who to blame.”
When administration advises council on the city's next steps in February, Wyness said she wants to see more costing of the panel's recommendations to know how the suggested changes could impact Calgarians' utility bills.
Ward 10 Coun. Andre Chabot has also expressed skepticism about the report's recommendations — especially around introducing a standalone corporation to manage water, similar to Enmax on electricity.
He said he's unsure why the panel said city council isn’t moving quickly enough, when from his perspective they're working as fast as they can while following legislative obligations.
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