took effect on March 9<\/a> as city crews shut down the Bearspaw feeder main for a series of reinforcement repairs following two catastrophic failures in less than two years.<\/p>\nStory continues below advertisement<\/p>\n
While the feeder main is out of service, as it typically carries 60 per cent of the city\u2019s treated water supply, city officials are urging Calgarians to find ways to save 25 litres of water per day.<\/p>\n
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Officials recommend skipping toilet flushes, shortening showers to three minutes or less and only running dishwashers and washing machines with a full load.<\/p>\n
At YMCA Calgary, staff are taking a number of measures to reduce water consumption with 85 per cent of the facilities\u2019 water use attributed to showers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re saving about 15,000 litres a day and we\u2019re doing that mostly by taking to our members,\u201d said YMCA Calgary\u2019s operations vice-president Nick Wiggins.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat three-minute shower recommendation the city has provided, that\u2019s what we\u2019re encouraging our members to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to city officials, there were two incidents over the weekend that highlighted the importance of water conservation during the feeder main repairs, including a now lifted boil-water advisory in Spruce Cliff and parts of Wildwood and Rosscarrock.<\/p>\n
Thompson said crews needed to flush water through pipes and fire hydrants before the advisory could be lifted, which used two million litres of water over three days.<\/p>\n
A large fire in the Manchester Industrial Park early Monday morning also required about seven million litres of water to extinguish, Thompson said.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThese are the kinds of situations that make it so important that we have a sufficient supply of treated water in our underground storage tanks,\u201d Thompson said.<\/p>\n
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\u201cBecause of the actions you took last week to save water, we had enough available in our underground storage tanks to deal with these two issues.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCalgary Mayor Jeromy Farkas on city water restrictions due to reinforcement of Bearspaw South Feeder Main\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
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Meanwhile, repairs continue on nine segments of the Bearspaw feeder main along 16 Avenue near Sarcee Trail, as well as in Point McKay Park.<\/p>\n
City officials said the pipe is now drained, and trench boxes have been installed along the nine segments of pipe that need reinforcement. The first two concrete encasement pours began on Monday, with more planned throughout the rest of the week, city officials said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is difficult work, it\u2019s precise work, and it\u2019s work that is happening around the clock,\u201d Calgary mayor Jeromy Farkas told reporters.<\/p>\n
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\u201cEven in weather like we\u2019ve seen recently, crews are out there every day making progress and moving this project forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
Work is expected to last until April 9 \u2014 a \u201ctemporary inconvenience,\u201d according to Farkas, until the feeder main\u2019s replacement is complete by the end of the year.<\/p>\n
City administration has budgeted $40 million for the repairs to the feeder main as part of a request for $609 million in additional funding<\/a> for water infrastructure.\u00a0 That funding request will be decided by Calgary city council during a meeting on Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\t\t© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Calgary\u2019s daily water use increased to a level deemed unsustainable for the first time since restrictions on water…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":541254,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194293],"tags":[165678,49,2798,71388,162170,168537,48],"class_list":["post-541253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-calgary","tag-bearspaw-feeder-main","tag-ca","tag-calgary","tag-calgary-city-council","tag-calgary-water-main-break","tag-calgary-water-restrictions","tag-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=541253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/541254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=541253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=541253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=541253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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