Braid: The secretive, serial bungling that gave Calgary the worst big-city water system

Secretive, self-serving, insular, incompetent.

Those words and many more fit city administration’s incredibly damaging role in Calgary’s water crisis.

The core problem is “consensus decision-making,” says the expert panel that studied the 2024 Bearspaw water main blowout.

Before a water project or even a major inspection can start, city managers from other sections have to agree.

This throws major work into the bear pit (Bearspaw pit?) of trading votes for pet plans.

The result was constant stalling of projects such as the Bearspaw replacement pipe and the new water line to the north.

Managers set those things aside, then moved on to the flashy stuff they loved — bike lanes, a paper bag bylaw, blanket rezoning, a climate emergency declaration.

The experts on the review panel seemed almost awed by the level of dysfunction.

“Consensus-based decision-making contributed to a culture of deferral and high-risk tolerance,” their report says.

“The city’s management culture prioritized consensus over escalation, which led to critical decisions being delayed or unresolved.”

The panellists note that requests to inspect the Bearspaw South feeder main in 2017, 2020 and 2022 were constantly deferred, “delaying monitoring of a high-consequence risk.”

The whole system was alarmingly comfortable with taking dangerous risks that are now realities.

For instance, city hall has long known that a new water line to the north was critical to prevent a crisis if Bearspaw failed.

The panel says: “Improvements such as the North Calgary Water Servicing Strategy were first proposed in 2011 . . . but did not proceed to preliminary design until 2022 and began construction in 2025.”

If that north line existed now, Bearspaw could shut down for repair without any need for citywide water restrictions.

Every other major city in Canada has that kind of water system redundancy. Not Calgary.

Other cities also have stand-alone water authorities with power to get crucial work done.

The panel calls for such a group within government, followed by creation of “an independent oversight body with the expertise needed to strengthen long-term planning and decision-making.”

These reforms have to start immediately. Councillors shouldn’t even think of delaying them just to deny a quick win to Mayor Jeromy Farkas.

Some are already starting to stall.

Coun. Jennifer Wyness said the reforms might lead to privatization. In fact, the panellists called for a utility entirely owned by the city.

Meanwhile, water is being sucked out of the Glenmore Reservoir at a furious rate.

If that overworked plant fails, folks, this city is royally screwed.

But consumption is much too high. We court the disaster of falling drinking water pressure and failure in parts of Calgary.

It would be helpful if we didn’t waste such an incredible amount of water.

Calgary has the highest loss rate of any major city. Nearly a quarter of our drinking water leaks into the ground. The average in other cities is about 12 per cent.

The panel said officials should have been much quicker to fix that problem with well-known technology.

Also, it seems the water managers weren’t even good at spending the money allotted to their projects.

“Capital program adherence has been poor, as the utility only achieved . . . its planned annual capital targets twice between 2003 and 2024.”

Another shocking fact is that no elected council for many years has been properly informed of the facts by city managers.

“Reporting to council was periodic and high-level, providing limited transparency into operational and risk performance,” the report says.

“Council also had limited access to the independent technical expertise required to provide oversight to management.”

Simply put, councillors never heard about critical decisions being made behind their backs.

A growing number of Calgarians have been upset with city administration for years.

Turns out we didn’t know the half of it.

Don Braid’s column appears regularly in the Herald

X and Bluesky: @DonBraid