Mayor urges Calgarians to 'ease' back into normal indoor water use as outdoor restrictions continue

Indoor water use can now return to normal in Calgary and neighbouring communities, the city's mayor announced Tuesday.

But Jyoti Gondek is still urging residents to ease back into their regular water-use habits as crews work to fully stabilize the system.

"The reductions that you have been doing at home are not needed anymore," Gondek said.

"You can return to using water inside your home the way that you were used to; we are asking that people ease into this, though."

Operations that had previously been asked to close — such as car washes and indoor pools — can also ease back to normal indoor water use.

In a regular update on Tuesday morning, Gondek said this marks the first step toward completely restoring the water supply and lifting remaining restrictions.

"This doesn't mean that everyone should take a shower, flush all the toilets and do all the laundry all at once," reads a news release from the city sent Tuesday afternoon.

The city remains under a state of local emergency and outdoor Stage 4 water restrictions and a citywide fire ban remain in place as crews determine how the system will respond to the easing of indoor conservation measures.

"We're not completely out of the woods yet," said Municipal Affairs Minister Ric McIver.

Gondek added that the state of local emergency expires on Thursday, and the city will review whether to renew or lift it as they monitor the situation.

To date, the city's 311 service has received nearly 11,000 calls related to water misuse and the fire ban. Bylaw officers have issued 19 tickets for water misuse, and six tickets for violating the fire ban.

The City of Calgary's general manager of infrastructure services Michael Thompson said the Bearspaw south feeder main is operating at 50 per cent capacity for now, and restoring normal water supply also means taking some of the stress off of the rest of the system.

"The Glenmore water treatment plant has been operating at a very high load for the last month, and so we need to start to slow that down," he said.

"We're going to reduce the production coming out of the Glenmore water treatment plant. Those pumps have all been going, nonstop, and we haven't had the ability to go and do some of the regular maintenance that we've needed to do at that plant."