[CBBarnett]

A new visitor to the city is likely consuming much less than 350L average per capita. They'll eat out most of the day and not do many of the water consuming activities (watering lawns, washing cars, laundry). Not to mention more of the city's population is out and about, which I'd think reduces water usage. Commercial appliances, toilets, facilities are likely more water efficient than most homes.

The city definitely sounds more relaxed about the issue in recent press conferences. From the sounds of it, a big concern of theirs was the parts to do the repairs, and the potential wait involved. Now that it's been sourced (with 2 from San Diego), the timeline is much more predictable that their modelling probably see us safely above the catastrophe levels.

A cool early summer forecast must help out a lot too. We still got a few weeks to go before the repairs are done, but I can imagine how much more dangerous and risky things would be if we had another heat dome event like June from a few years ago when it was bone dry and 35 degrees for a week. A heat wave would have more consumption just to stay cool, but also much higher fire risks - we've been very lucky weather wise.

 

[Mountain Man]

I think restaurants are only serving water if patrons ask, so that should be a big help with a couple hundred thousand more people dining out.

 

[trtcttc]

A cool early summer forecast must help out a lot too. We still got a few weeks to go before the repairs are done, but I can imagine how much more dangerous and risky things would be if we had another heat dome event like June from a few years ago when it was bone dry and 35 degrees for a week. A heat wave would have more consumption just to stay cool, but also much higher fire risks - we've been very lucky weather wise.

Absolutely. Things would be much worse if we didn't get the last round of rain and cooler temps, even the reservoirs are approaching normal levels. Hopefully this spells for a smoke free July/August.

Water levels in southern Alberta reservoirs creep towards normal

Southern Alberta reservoirs are filling up as the spring melt comes to an end.

calgary.ctvnews.ca

 

[CBBarnett]

This whole event is pretty eye-opening on how to save water. I never have been overly wasteful on water, but probably like most people - just never thought about it much. I now am far more intentional on water use and have found that just thinking a bit about some small stuff (e.g. shorter showers etc.) does seem to make a difference on personal usage.

The collective numbers show that too. We seems to have landed just fine at consistently 20 - 30% below typical citywide usage - of course with a bit of grumbling, but not too much overall inconvenience (internet hyperbole, conspiracies and political point-scoring aside).

It's a good foreshadowing for a drier Calgary in the future. Rain barrels and similar are going to become an increasingly standard/required thing for anyone that wants a green lawn or big garden, for example.

 

[DougB]

This whole event is pretty eye-opening on how to save water. I never have been overly wasteful on water, but probably like most people - just never thought about it much. I now am far more intentional on water use and have found that just thinking a bit about some small stuff (e.g. shorter showers etc.) does seem to make a difference on personal usage.

The collective numbers show that too. We seems to have landed just fine at consistently 20 - 30% below typical citywide usage - of course with a bit of grumbling, but not too much overall inconvenience (internet hyperbole, conspiracies and political point-scoring aside).

It's a good foreshadowing for a drier Calgary in the future. Rain barrels and similar are going to become an increasingly standard/required thing for anyone that wants a green lawn or big garden, for example.

Rain barrels don't make much sense in Calgary. Irrigation accounts for most water use in Alberta. Most indoor water is treated and released into the Bow and can be used downstream (the WID intake is upstream of Calgary's wastewater outflows, but the much larger EID and BRID diversions are downstream). Outdoor water use is mostly lost to evaporation, regardless if it comes from a rain barrel or the tap. Sure rainwater capture would reduce water treatment costs but it isn't a solution to southern AB's long term water allocation challenges. AB needs more reservoirs to store water during the snowpack melt and June rainy season.

 

[CBBarnett]

Rain barrels don't make much sense in Calgary. Irrigation accounts for most water use in Alberta. Most indoor water is treated and released into the Bow and can be used downstream (the WID intake is upstream of Calgary's wastewater outflows, but the much larger EID and BRID diversions are downstream). Outdoor water use is mostly lost to evaporation, regardless if it comes from a rain barrel or the tap. Sure rainwater capture would reduce water treatment costs but it isn't a solution to southern AB's long term water allocation challenges. AB needs more reservoirs to store water during the snowpack melt and June rainy season.

I am talking about lawns and flower gardens not industrial applications or macro-issues of overall supply. Rain barrels make sense in Calgary for that application.

 

[Surrealplaces]

Rain barrels don't make much sense in Calgary. Irrigation accounts for most water use in Alberta. Most indoor water is treated and released into the Bow and can be used downstream (the WID intake is upstream of Calgary's wastewater outflows, but the much larger EID and BRID diversions are downstream). Outdoor water use is mostly lost to evaporation, regardless if it comes from a rain barrel or the tap. Sure rainwater capture would reduce water treatment costs but it isn't a solution to southern AB's long term water allocation challenges. AB needs more reservoirs to store water during the snowpack melt and June rainy season.

It depends what the rain barrels are used for. If you have a system of 3 barrels like my neighbor has, they store a lot of water, and if you only need it to water grass and shrubs in a smaller yard (or a yard half covered in deck and patio stones) they work really well. They aren't necessarily going to solve water shortages overall, but treated water will be getting more expensive as the city grows. I can see rain barrels getting more popular.

 

[Mountain Man]

Going go get up into the high 20s and possibly low 30s this weekend, curious to see how water use is affected.

 

[Red Star]

The thought is that the chance of failure before 70 years was meant to be infinitesimally small, so the risk is close equal. 10 years from now a parallel replacement would have been contemplated, at which point the original could have been taken out of service and relined at a lower capacity.

The cost of two 5 foot pipes is likely way more than one large pipe.

Anyways, found the data set, which the city has in a nice visualizer.

Here are the concrete pipes installed between 1969 and 1981.
View attachment 573266

Public Water Main Locations | Open Calgary

Water main assets owned and operated by the City of Calgary for the distribution of drinking water.

data.calgary.ca

That's the question that I find the most intriguing. The water main is suppose to have a lifecycle of 100 years and yet it catastrophically ruptured at year 49.

Did the manufacturer lie about the pipe specifications?
Was the pipe under too much pressure?
Was the flow rate too great?
Was there a change in the way the city treated water since 1975 which affected the concrete and steel of the pipe?
was the pipe installed incorrectly?

 

[darwink]

That's the question that I find the most intriguing. The water main is suppose to have a lifecycle of 100 years and yet it catastrophically ruptured at year 49.

Did the manufacturer lie about the pipe specifications?
Was the pipe under too much pressure?
Was the flow rate too great?
Was there a change in the way the city treated water since 1975 which affected the concrete and steel of the pipe?
was the pipe installed incorrectly?

From what I've read hyper local ground conditions are pretty important for pipes this age. The concrete spec became higher over time, leaving less opportunities for the concrete to break down from the outside in.

So, you could say, the pipe may have been incorrectly spec'd for the ground conditions, which means it was installed incorrectly. To speculate further, with the upgrade of the pumping station, there may have been stresses of various types which increased the odds.

 

[DougB]

It depends what the rain barrels are used for. If you have a system of 3 barrels like my neighbor has, they store a lot of water, and if you only need it to water grass and shrubs in a smaller yard (or a yard half covered in deck and patio stones) they work really well. They aren't necessarily going to solve water shortages overall, but treated water will be getting more expensive as the city grows. I can see rain barrels getting more popular.

Calgary is unusual in being located at the top of a watershed. The only other NA cities that I can think of that are similarly located are Denver and Atlanta, which are other railway cities. That means that captured rainwater only robs from downstream uses, where the real supply shortages occur, so the savings are only on treatment costs.

 

[darwink]

Calgary is unusual in being located at the top of a watershed. The only other NA cities that I can think of that are similarly located are Denver and Atlanta, which are other railway cities. That means that captured rainwater only robs from downstream uses, where the real supply shortages occur, so the savings are only on treatment costs.

It's a bit crazy how much of the South Saskatchewan flow this year is from the Bow. Typically by this time of year in Medicine Hat flow is 2x Calgary's, this year they're equal.

 

[DougB]

It's a bit crazy how much of the South Saskatchewan flow this year is from the Bow. Typically by this time of year in Medicine Hat flow is 2x Calgary's, this year they're equal.

Probably aggressively filling the Oldman, St Mary's and Waterton Reservoirs so not much coming from the Oldman.

 

[Urban Outdoorsman]

Yeah I live in Lethbridge and the old man river is quite low atm, but all of the canals are full so I'm assuming they're taking the opportunity to fill as many of the reservoirs as they can.

 

[Airboy]

North Sak in Edmonton is at 169 3M/h. Well below the average low of 2553M/h. At this time of year though we have large flow rates due to the rains in the upper basin. Not this year.