‘Couldn’t there have been hints we were just ignoring?’ asks a councillor
It is a simple question.
It is about the pipe, the big piece of water pipe that failed.
That pipe.
On the sixth day of water restrictions and with another week before we find out when we’re back to normal, it’s the moment for the simple question.
When was the last time the City of Calgary inspected this segment of pipe, this particular pipe that is no more?
And when the City of Calgary inspected this pipe what did they find?
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After a morning at city council where clear questions got unclear answers despite the mayor’s promise we would get clear answers, your scribbler goes to the city’s Emergency Operations Centre.
When a plane goes down they look at the plane’s maintenance schedule. Sounds reasonable to look at the busted pipe’s maintenance schedule.
Before we go further, there was no maintenance on this particular part of the pipe in April. That maintenance was further down the line nearer to Bearspaw.
So the question is asked. When was the pipe in question last inspected and what did the city find?
The question is handed off to Francois Bouchard, a big shot at the city.
“I don’t actually have any specific data to share with you.”
It takes a few seconds to settle in.
No “specific data” to share. No work order, no report, no memo, no correspondence, no paper trail, no knowledge, no nothing?
The city still does not know when the pipe causing so much grief was inspected?
One soul asks me how no one in the massive universe of the City of Calgary didn’t ask or look for a record of the last inspection of a piece of pipe now infamous around the world.
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This same soul, far more jaded than myself, suggests maybe the city knows more than they’re telling.
I would never suggest such a thing but, without answers, people do fill in the blanks in their own way.
By this time, I’m sufficiently gobsmacked by the city’s response I blurt out: “All I’m asking is, as clear as you can be, you don’t have the answer to that so …”
“I don’t have the answer to that today,” says bossman Bouchard.
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Earlier in the day, Jennifer Wyness is one councillor trying to get answers.
She is told the city doesn’t wait until a break in a pipe happens. They “replace the pipes we know are going to fail.”
How’s that working so far?
Wyness is told about the city’s “leakage detection program.”
The councillor asks if there was any hint this big, bad pipe was leaking.
The same Bouchard guy I asked, tells her there are different types of leaks.
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“Part of the analysis we would do as part of the condition assessment is to assess the extent to which that pipe is leaking in the form of different types of failures.”
It might be a crack in the pipe, it might be a small hole, it might be leakage at the joints themselves.
What about this pipe?
“What we’re dealing with here, though, is what we refer to as a catastrophic failure where that failure happens all of a sudden and has a significant impact as a result.”
Back to the pipe that burst.
Wyness asks: “Based on that program of leakage detection were there hints this pipe was leaking and it was still within the margin of error you would accept as a leaking pipe?”
The City of Calgary Bouchard answers: “For this specific pipe I do not believe we had, at this point in time, data to be able to estimate what was leaking, how much leaking was occurring from this pipe.”
Responding back to the city, Wyness finds the answer “very concerning, considering you say you have a monitoring program to check for leaks and all of a sudden we have catastrophic failure.
“Couldn’t there have been hints that we were just ignoring?”
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Bouchard of city hall says: “In terms of catastrophic failure, there are times when there’s no forewarning in terms of that failure occurring.”
Someone else from the city is called in and answers: “No, we did not anticipate what we saw.”
Councillors agree answers weren’t there and yet people want to know.
Andre Chabot, a veteran councillor, recalls the floods of 2005 and 2013.
Things were different.
“Back then everyone was taken on the journey. This is what’s happened. This is what was done. All members of council were brought in on the issues.”
When I left city hall to try for an answer, a staffer there tells me to let everyone know if I had any success.
Sadly, as you now know, I did not.
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