Independent review of Calgary water main break may take a year to complete

An independent review of Calgary’s critical water main break may take a year to complete, city administration said.

Administration officials said in a report presented to committee on Wednesday that the independent third-party review will look at the factors that contributed to the feeder main break and the possible root cause. The review will also look at the incident response and asset management practices, as well as the overall resilience of the city’s drinking water distribution system.

“The crux of the problem we’re trying to solve is trust but we’re not understanding how to build that, and it’s through conversation, it’s acknowledging that things are not working right,” said Ward 2 Coun. Jennifer Wyness.

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The first step will be finding a chair for the panel, which raised questions at Wednesday’s committee meeting. Administration recommended going with a hand-picked advisory group to identify the right candidate, while councillors wanted someone more independent.

Mayor Jyoti Gondek said this process needs to happen soon so the panel can start working on the review.

“Perhaps we could use a recruiter, perhaps we could use an independent advisory panel to select a chair, but at some point, we do have to select a chair and get down to the work at hand,” she told reporters.

Administration officials originally proposed a four-month timeline for the review, and the final report will be delivered to Duckworth on Oct. 31 before being presented to council in November.

However, Duckworth said the review process would take at least a year after consulting with industry professionals.

“If it takes a year, it takes a year. We need to get the right answers,” said Ward 1 Coun. Sonya Sharp. “I think that’s important. All this history and background on our utilities is very important for this group to have their hands on.”

Duckworth told reporters that he understands Calgarians have many questions about the water main break and want answers.

“Calgarians have a right to get answers to their questions. It’s going to take some time,” he said. “I think we would prefer to have answers to the questions as quickly as possible. Again, our timelines were clearly too aggressive.”