Repair work on broken feeder main in its 'final stages'
CBC
Full restoration of Calgary's water supply is still days away, but construction and repair work on the infrastructure itself is now nearing completion.
Mayor Jyoti Gondek shared that news during her Tuesday morning daily update on the developments of the Bearspaw south feeder main, saying that welding at the four hotspot sites is finished and concrete curing at one hotspot is also complete.
Backfilling will begin today and continue into tomorrow, she said.
Even with the repair work winding down, Gondek said the next stage of bringing the water supply back to full capacity is just getting started.
"We're not quite finished yet," she said. "There will be time needed to flush the pipe, then to fill the pipe, test water quality and adjust from partial pressure to regular pressure."
Gondek added that this will take several days, but Michael Thompson, the City of Calgary's general manager of infrastructure services will have an update on the timeline of that work at Tuesday's regular afternoon update.
"I have heard that this update may have some positive news on timing for water service to be restored," Gondek said. "But again, the teams are working on that right now and will have more to offer you at 2 p.m."
The Bearspaw south water feeder main, a major pipe that supplies nearly 60 per cent of the city's potable water, ruptured on June 5.
The main break led to outdoor water restrictions, with the city also urging residents and businesses to cut back on their own use to help ensure an adequate water supply.
During Tuesday morning's update, Gondek continued to ask residents to curb their water usage, as demand has been increasing once again. On Monday, Calgary used around 460 million litres of water.
"We're still days away from regular water flow," Gondek said. "Until then, we're still relying on the smaller facility at Glenmore to provide water throughout the city."
With the B.C. NDP and B.C. Conservatives neck and neck heading into election day on Saturday, there are also a record number of Independent candidates who — if voted in — could hold the balance of power in a minority government scenario. British Columbians have only elected one Independent MLA in the last 60 years. Vicki Huntington won a seat in 2009 and was re-elected in 2013. But University of the Fraser Valley political scientist Hamish Telford said the situation could be different this election cycle. Of the 40 Independent candidates running, six of them are incumbent MLAs, who carry the benefit of name recognition in their community. "So we've got Independents in this election who I think we could deem to be viable shots at actually winning a riding, which is not normal," Telford said. "They're still long shots, but they are certainly plausible candidates."
Though Bill C-282 has received cross-party federal support in Ottawa, Alberta's provincial government says it's not a backer of the Bloc Québécois legislation that aims to prevent Canada's supply-managed sectors — dairy, poultry and eggs — from being included in future international trade negotiations.
A former Canadian Olympic snowboarder and 15 others are facing criminal charges for allegedly running a drug-trafficking operation that shipped hundreds of kilograms of cocaine from Colombia to Canada and used violence — including murder — to achieve the group's goals, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Thursday.