Built in 1975, the Bearspaw south feeder main runs directly from the Bearspaw Water Treatment Plant, pictured here.
Officials have been flooding citizens with updates on the status of the Bearspaw south feeder main for most of the summer, including various announcements about new "wire snaps." But what does that mean?Built in 1975, the Bearspaw south feeder main runs from the Bearspaw Water Treatment Plant, pictured here. The critical water main transports roughly 60 per cent of Calgary's treated water supply.
So what is a wire snap? And what does any of this mean for the future of some of Calgary's most indispensable infrastructure?One expert says that in order to understand what these wire snaps are, it's important to understand what material makes up the Bearspaw south feeder main. "It's an early warning system, and it's a really good thing to do when you have to get a pipe back into operation," said Bell.
During a July 11 update, Francois Bouchart, director of capital priorities and investment with the City of Calgary's infrastructure services department, said the wire snaps didn't mean another catastrophic failure was imminent. Kerry Black, assistant professor and Canada Research Chair with the University of Calgary's Schulich School of Engineering, in the department of civil engineering, says "it's way too premature to point fingers at different types of material, different types of pipe."
"What you're transporting is really important in this conversation," she said. "The reality with water is because it's not valued the way that oil is, we allow it to leak out of our pipes and we're OK with that. We have a different kind of relationship with it." In light of Wednesday's announcement, Black believes this situation will continue to place a hard-to-ignore spotlight on the importance of infrastructure. With more severe water restrictions returning on Aug. 26 while the feeder main undergoes repairs, Black says she'll be watching public reaction to water infrastructure budgets in the future.Maintaining and inspecting water infrastructure — especially large-diameter pipe, like feeder mains — is a costly process.
In an email to CBC News, the city said it also has acoustic fibre optic monitoring — the same technologies that detected new wire snaps in the Bearspaw south feeder main — in place for the McKnight feeder main, running along McKnight Boulevard N.E. between 36th Street and 52nd Street.Brander echoed Black's thoughts about water being less valued than oil, leading to lower-cost infrastructure.
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