Juno News - Calgary is falling apart

00:00:00.000 A major water main that supplies 60% of Calgary's water supply is still not fixed after the main

00:00:06.340 began leaking last week. This is no small water main. The break occurred in what's considered to

00:00:11.920 be one of the city's main arteries, taking water from the treatment facility in the north to 23

00:00:18.400 reservoirs across the city of Calgary. The main is so big that you can drive a vehicle through it.

00:00:23.660 On Sunday, Calgary Mayor Jody Gonick was forced to apologize for the city's poor communication

00:00:29.080 regarding the water crisis. But what the mayor has said in recent days hasn't reassured me

00:00:34.160 one bit. We pay record amounts in property taxes, and yet basic city infrastructure is falling apart.

00:00:41.420 Anyone paying attention is beginning to wonder, where's all our money going?

00:00:44.960 I'm Rachel Emanuel, and this is the Alberta Roundup.

00:00:47.040 Rachel Emanuel brings the news each day. On Alberta Roundup, she has her say.

00:00:58.240 Okay, everyone, before we get started here, some of you will notice that I am recording in a different

00:01:02.000 location. Some of you have complained repeatedly under the comments section about the white wall

00:01:07.580 that I typically use, saying that it is very hard on the eyes when you're watching the show on your TV.

00:01:12.180 So I thought I would try something different for a little while. Let me know if you prefer

00:01:16.240 the new background color, or if you would prefer that I go back to the old white that I've been

00:01:21.020 using for some time now. Okay, everyone, let's start by diving into the details and looking into

00:01:25.360 what happened last week Wednesday when the pipe burst. That was eight days ago now. The pipe is

00:01:30.260 officially known as the Bear Spa South Feeder Main, and officials are still unsure what caused the break.

00:01:36.600 In fact, Calgary Mayor Jody Gonick has said that the pipe was in good condition,

00:01:40.100 and had some maintenance work done to add technology, such as air valves to ensure its

00:01:45.360 future performance. She also said that the pipe has a 100 year lifespan, and is only 50 years into

00:01:52.200 that lifespan. So about halfway of what we should have expected of its performance. So I think at

00:01:56.520 this point, we have more questions and answers as to what went wrong last week. As I mentioned before,

00:02:01.880 the pipe is actually big enough to drive a vehicle through. Those of you who are watching this podcast

00:02:06.040 on video format, which I believe most of you do, are able to get a good look right now as to exactly

00:02:11.340 how big this water main was. As I mentioned before, big enough to drive a vehicle through. This thing is

00:02:16.980 absolutely massive, which is part of the reason it's taking crews so long to dig down, figure out where

00:02:22.400 the pipe had broken, and then begin getting that piece out of the ground so that it could be replaced.

00:02:27.460 The Broker Feederman is in Bonus, which is a community in Calgary's northwest, very close to where

00:02:33.040 I live. And that community has been under a boil water advisory until Monday. Officials are also

00:02:39.260 warning Calgarians that if they don't continue to cut down on their water use, the city runs the risk

00:02:44.880 of running out of treated water. Officials suggested reducing shower times by a few minutes,

00:02:50.520 skipping a few flushes of the toilet, or holding off on doing laundry for the time being. Stage four

00:02:55.980 outdoor watering restrictions are in place, meaning you can't water plants, your lawn, or use tap water for

00:03:02.140 any other purposes outside. Businesses are also being asked to stop all non-essential water uses,

00:03:07.320 which includes construction, exterior window cleaning, pesticide application, and washing

00:03:12.600 surfaces. Now, Calgary estimated last week that it would take five to seven days to fix the pipeline,

00:03:17.760 but officials still don't have an exact timeline, and it's been a week. Take a listen.

00:03:22.360 We're building out the timeline for what this looks like once we get the new pipe in, and then we've

00:03:27.800 got to start filling the pipe and get everything back in service.

00:03:30.360 Now that we know exactly what has gone wrong, even though we don't have an answer to the biggest

00:03:34.540 question why the pipe burst in the first place, let's take a look at what Calgary Mayor Jody

00:03:38.540 Gondek has been saying. After her initial apology on Sunday, Gondek has been holding more briefings

00:03:43.160 throughout the week. The city has been doing about two press conferences a day to update Calgarians

00:03:47.120 on the water crisis. Here's Gondek giving an update at her Tuesday briefing.

00:03:51.000 We might have the feeder main repaired in five to seven days. Following that, it still needs to be flushed,

00:03:57.840 and the water will need to be tested. That means several more days of all of us being low water

00:04:03.340 users. Now, the mayor has been appearing in press briefings more often to reassure Calgarians and to

00:04:09.020 give them clear information on the situation. And I didn't see much media coverage of what she said 0.69

00:04:13.920 next in this briefing, but it was actually a chilling revelation to those of us paying attention.

00:04:18.860 Take a listen. Yesterday morning, we also learned of a small water main break in Bowness, which impacted

00:04:25.400 21 households. And while we know that water main breaks happen to the tune of about 200 a year in

00:04:31.980 the city, it was still another blow to our neighbors in Bowness. In this press conference, the mayor drops

00:04:37.240 that there's been another water break in the poor community of Bowness, who's just taken an absolute

00:04:42.600 beating. She sort of covered this by saying, you know, there's about 200 of these, and it was unrelated to the

00:04:47.700 initial incident. That does not make me feel better. The fact that it was unrelated to the initial water

00:04:54.360 break does not give me confidence in this whatsoever. Now, for those of you who are feeling

00:04:58.660 uneasy, next the mayor says that access to the feeder main, which is currently being fixed, also needs to

00:05:05.220 be repaired. Take a listen. Now, while the crews are in the ground, they're also repairing an access

00:05:11.080 point to that feeder main. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together at this point is beginning to

00:05:15.920 understand that Calgary's water supply system is in a very fragile state. And then the mayor goes on

00:05:22.700 CTV news, and she isn't able to say whether or not she has confidence that this was a one-off

00:05:28.240 incident. Take a listen to that. Any concerns that it may fail somewhere else as well? Or does it

00:05:32.740 look like this might have just been a one-off in that one spot? So the water team does regular checks.

00:05:38.840 There was maintenance done on this line, routine maintenance, in April of this year. So the good

00:05:45.100 news scenario is that all the parts and the equipment that we need to do the repair are

00:05:49.700 available to us. They're just waiting to go into the ground once the assessment is done.

00:05:55.840 You know what? We do regular maintenance on a lot of our infrastructure, and we do a review of the

00:06:00.940 infrastructure on a regular basis to see how it's doing. Instead of going ahead and agreeing with

00:06:05.400 the host and reassuring Calgarians that yes, this incident was a one-off, Gondek goes ahead and says

00:06:11.000 that there was regular maintenance being done on this major feedmate, which personally makes me feel

00:06:15.960 even worse. So we apparently are already taking regular looks at this line to make sure that issues

00:06:22.060 don't arise, and yet the biggest water leak in the city's history, probably even the province's history,

00:06:28.540 occurs under this mayor's watch. So just to sum up, there's been a break in a major water feed

00:06:33.420 that officials still don't know when is going to be fixed. While that was happening in the city of

00:06:37.880 Bowness, there was also another break in a water main in the city of Bowness, a smaller one unrelated

00:06:43.280 to the first incident, as if that's supposed to reassure us somehow that things are running very

00:06:48.160 smoothly over at the city of Calgary. Then an access point to the major water feed also needed to be

00:06:54.120 fixed so that officials could get down and fix this issue in the first place. And while all of this is

00:06:59.140 going on, the mayor of Calgary is not able to come out and say that this incident was a one-off.

00:07:04.680 Instead, she tries to reassure us by saying that regular maintenance was being done on this.

00:07:09.640 If regular maintenance was being done on this, how did this incident happen in the first place?

00:07:13.180 You think this is something officials would have been able to catch before it turned into the massive

00:07:17.600 citywide crisis that is happening right now. So much so to the point that you are all being asked

00:07:22.380 to stop showering, and you're not able to water your lawns, or even flush your toilets. It's even worse if

00:07:28.780 you're living in Bowness, where you weren't able to access safe drinking water unless you were able

00:07:33.740 to drive to one of the vans that was supplying it. Now, I know you all were thinking this Calgary

00:07:38.760 hellscape couldn't get any worse, but you would be wrong. Because of course, there are still many

00:07:43.540 Canadians who are all too eager to return to the COVID era of rules and telling on your neighbors,

00:07:50.120 which is exactly what some Calgarians have resorted to doing when they felt their neighbors

00:07:54.080 weren't doing an adequate job of consuming water. Take a look at this clip from a Calgary official this

00:07:59.480 week. While most Calgarians are doing their best and following water restrictions, we have been

00:08:05.880 attending to some people who have not. Since June 6th, we've dealt with a number of incidences of people

00:08:11.260 misusing water. We've issued 993 notices and resolved 934 calls. Of those resolved, we've had 249 written

00:08:22.320 warnings, 321 verbal warnings, and we have issued the same one ticket. While there is room for

00:08:30.700 improvement, we're encouraged by the far greater number of Calgarians that are complying with the

00:08:35.540 water restrictions, especially during Calgary's short growing season. Now, just because I know how

00:08:40.980 things are so easily manipulated and flipped on the internet, I'm not taking this as a call not to

00:08:45.640 follow the stage four restrictions. You can make that decision for yourself. You can look at the

00:08:50.080 information that's being provided and decide if you want to follow these rules or not, and if you want

00:08:54.620 to risk the fine or not. If I was living in Calgary, I probably would be able to follow the rules fairly

00:08:59.680 quickly considering that I didn't have a lawn and I had no outside plants to water anyways, so I doubt

00:09:05.940 I would be very impacted by these restrictions to begin with. That said, I also wouldn't be the type

00:09:10.320 of person to stand at my window taking notes of people who I didn't feel were doing an adequate job

00:09:14.940 of following the city restrictions and calling and telling of them, and I suspect most of you aren't

00:09:19.300 those types of people either. Now, I'm not the first person to observe this nightmare, and I won't be the

00:09:23.480 last, so now let's take a look at some of the comments that were left under Calgary Mayor Jodi

00:09:28.200 Gondek's press briefings this week. This first comment is from Zinquips. How many tickets have 1.00

00:09:33.420 been issued to the city for misusing water? Since the flood in 2013, millions of municipal dollars

00:09:38.820 have been spent on improving water management. Apparently, the solution was, enrich their friends

00:09:44.140 associated with construction companies and leave a city with 1.3 million people with a water supply

00:09:50.000 that is reliant on one downstream pipe that was installed in the 1950s. When it broke, nobody can

00:09:56.200 provide an explanation, or why there is zero redundancy. Now our mayor is suggesting that

00:10:01.300 we shower with a bucket. That's a great metaphor. These city hall grifters must catch millions in

00:10:07.300 their grift buckets. I think this comment raises a lot of important questions, questions that I

00:10:11.240 myself am raising about why are we paying so much in city property taxes when this is the type of

00:10:16.640 service we're getting. We don't even have basic needs like water being delivered to us, and obviously

00:10:22.240 this is a provincial government priority, but we saw the same thing in the winter in January when we

00:10:25.880 had that cold spike. We had one cold spike this January, and it was otherwise a relatively warm

00:10:31.080 winter. And already, we were being warned that if we didn't conserve our electricity use, we would be

00:10:35.900 facing rolling brownouts. So for those of us living in Alberta, we're probably looking around right now

00:10:40.300 wondering what is going on at the various levels of government that it has become such a

00:10:44.240 difficulty to provide us with basic services like water or electricity. Seems like every time things get a

00:10:50.400 little bit tough, you know, weather's a little colder than it usually is. All of a sudden, we're being in a

00:10:55.020 position where we're being warned, you might have to keep your lights off for a couple hours. And if you

00:10:59.160 don't do that, then we're not going to have any electricity to provide to you to heat your homes. As for the

00:11:04.120 city of Calgary, they just raised property taxes this year. And then they turn around and deliver this type of

00:11:09.080 service to us. As many of you know, I'm in Ontario at the moment visiting family. I'm sort of torn

00:11:13.480 because I feel like I missed out on a big news story. It's actually a story that is national interest, I think, just

00:11:19.160 because it is a massive disaster and such mismanagement of city water and mismanagement

00:11:25.640 even of a crisis and how poorly they began communicating things. So I'm torn in one sense,

00:11:30.360 I like to be on the ground to report things. In another sense, I'm very glad and very relieved I

00:11:35.280 don't have to deal with the irritation of water restrictions. I have a young baby, I've just started

00:11:40.020 feeding him solids. As any of you parents out there know, it is an absolute nightmare when you start

00:11:45.360 giving your baby solids for the first time, food everywhere. So you know, we've been giving him a

00:11:49.640 couple more baths than usual. So that would have been a bit of an irritation if now I felt like

00:11:53.380 I had to conserve water or risk running out. So you know, I guess at the end of the day, I would say

00:11:58.240 I'm pretty relieved not to be there. But watching this all happen from afar makes me think, do I even

00:12:03.720 want to live in Calgary? Do I want to live in a city where they continually raise property taxes

00:12:07.420 and are unable to deliver basic services like water? The answer is probably not. I kind of suspect we won't

00:12:13.700 want to live within the actual boundaries of city because I just can't fathom being governed by a

00:12:20.060 city council and city officials that are this incompetent at doing their jobs. Paying that much in

00:12:26.740 property taxes and then struggling to have things like water delivered to your home. It just doesn't

00:12:31.300 seem worth it to me. It doesn't seem worth it to me. Let's keep taking a look at some of these comments.

00:12:35.920 User Sapala said, better to issue tickets now after days of warnings because until actual tickets

00:12:41.740 issued, people will keep doing it knowing no real tickets are issued. So this is pretty much

00:12:47.420 a pretty common attitude of people that we see on the left. Let's ticket our neighbors for things

00:12:52.860 like watering the garden. I don't know. I don't know what these instances were, but I'm just saying

00:12:57.200 I hate this kind of stuff. It's so unbelievably petty. I think Dr. Jordan Peterson put it best.

00:13:02.480 Petty tyrants. Whenever incidents like these arise, we see all the petty tyrants come out of the

00:13:07.180 woodwork. So eager to tell on their neighbors and have a little bit of, you know, maybe feeling of

00:13:12.220 power from that. And this is the type of behavior that you run into a lot in the city. So again,

00:13:17.260 I'm thinking might be best to move out of the city, have a little more privacy from your neighbors,

00:13:21.620 have a little more land. I'm just so tired of the types of people that have really shown their true

00:13:27.440 color since COVID and are always looking for an excuse to basically tell on each other. Okay. And this

00:13:33.240 comment, I just had to throw in there because it made me laugh. Truthfully, I just thought this was

00:13:37.060 funny. I have a very immature sense of humor. User Titus Maximus said, I've been drinking my pee.

00:13:44.940 Okay. I'm sorry. I'm very immature. You guys, I thought that was hilarious. All right. So that

00:13:49.700 wraps up today's show question of the week for you all. How many of you are conserving your water use

00:13:54.340 in Calgary? And what do you think caused the break in this major water feed? What do you think?

00:14:01.000 All right, everyone. That's all we have time for today. As always, I will be back on Saturday with

00:14:06.560 my regular programming. Please like this video and subscribe to True North so you don't miss any

00:14:11.500 of our content. I hope that you guys have a great rest of your week. I'll see you on Saturday. God bless.

Juno News - June 12, 2024

Calgary is falling apart

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