Calgary Water - Facts & Figures
The two sources for Calgary's drinking water are both surface sources. The Bow River supplies the Bearspaw Water Treatment Plant and the Elbow River flows into the Glenmore Reservoir, which is the source of water for the Glenmore Water Treatment Plant. The Bearspaw Plant primarily supplies water to the north sector of the city, while the Glenmore plant supplies the south. However, the water supply from the two plants is interconnected through large diameter transmission mains to ensure a reliable supply to all times.
The City of Calgary Water Services withdraws water from these two river systems according to demand and within parameters set out by Alberta Environment. The city is careful not to exceed its licenses for daily and annual withdrawals while maintaining enough flow in the river systems to support other users of the water system both within Calgary and downstream of the city.
Calgary Water Services operates and maintains the Glenmore and Bearspaw Water Treatment Plants, 30 pump station sites to 37 pressure zones, 12 finished water storage reservoir sites with 19 basins, nearly 4000 kilometers of pipes and over 260,000 service connections.
The City of Calgary Water Services operates and maintains nearly 4000 kilometres of watermains in Calgary. Each year, Water Services replaces 1–1.5% of these mains. Since January of 1970, the cumulative total length of mains that has been replace under the Main Replacement Program is almost 540 kilometres.
The City invested $100 million in the 1994 expansion of the Bonnybrook Wastewater Treatment Plant to effectively serve Calgary's growing population, while incorporating state-of-the-art treatment technologies, including ultraviolet-light (UV-light) disinfection and biological phosphorus- and nitrogen-removal (BNR) process.
This process eliminates the toxic risks involved with the traditional method of chlorination and dechlorination. The biological BNR process removes phosphorus and nitrogen from Calgary's waste water by using naturally-occurring micro-organisms instead of chemicals, eliminating the cost of chemicals and their discharge into the Bow River.Consequently, Calgary ranked highest in waste-water treatment in a Canada-wide survey conducted in 1996, due to the new processes. Today, Calgary provides the most –sophisticated "tertiary" sewage treatment in the country.- City of Calgary
Urban Stormwater
According to hte Bow Rivwer Basin Council water quality in the mainstream of the Bow River has greatly improved over the past decade since the City of Calgary installed full tertiary treatment - including UV disinfection at both the Bonnybrooke and Fish Creek wastewater treatment plants- and other industrial plants no longer discharge into the river.
However, Urban Stormwater is one of the emerging issues.
- Urban stormwater from Calgary continues to have an adverse impact on water quality in the Bow River. In 1991, it was estimated that stormwater was then contributing 850 metric tonnes of total nitrogen and 86,000 tonnes of suspended sediments per year.
- Bacteria levels (as indicated by Escherichia coli) in the Bow River in Calgary have exceeded contact recreation limits during major summer storm events.
- As Calgary grows, this loading will continue to increase unless measures are taken, such as improved management of storm water.
- To prevent deterioration in water quality due to increasing urban storm water, the City of Calgary will be licensed for the combined loading from storm sewers and wastewater plants by 2003.
- Calgary will have to install appropriate treatment to prevent an increase in this combined loading.
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- Bow River Basin Council
Water Scarcity
Concern is rising as water levels in the Great Lakes plummet and
trade agreements raise the threat of bulk-water exports. Canadians are increasingly aware of
the limits of this vital resource – and the rules governing its use.
Nowhere in the country is this more apparent than in Alberta, where water scarcity is testing
the provincial governance regime as never before. In October 2006, Alberta stopped issuing
licences for the extraction of water from three major rivers: the Bow, the Oldman, and the
South Saskatchewan.2 In plain terms, southern Alberta has run out of water for any additional
water users.
To its credit, the Alberta government undertook a review and revision of water legislation
implementing a new Water Act in 1999, and in 2004 commenced its Water for Life strategy. Both
of these initiatives recognized the threat of looming water scarcity and acknowledged the need
to protect and restore aquatic ecosystems.
Together, these initiatives also identified a range of
tools to do so: data gathering and synthesis; regulatory oversight; protective environmental
objectives, allocations and holdbacks; increased public consultation; and economic instruments
such as water rights trading.
While the aims of Water for Life are laudable, implementation successes have been few and far
between. This is partly due to insufficient funding and lack of political commitment.
This is worrisome, especially given the 2006 imposition of the licensing moratorium on new
water licence applications in southern Alberta. This moratorium has already fuelled plans
for long-range water transfers and – for the first time in Canadian history – opened an active
water-trading market. Together, these developments will almost certainly increase the intensity
of existing water uses, reducing the flow in rivers and lowering the level of lakes.
It is not surprising that southern Alberta is the first region in Canada to grapple with prolonged
water scarcity. Alberta has only 2.2 per cent of Canada’s renewable freshwater and 80 per cent
of that water is in the North while 80 per cent of its population in the South.
Two recent proposals may well be harbingers of Alberta’s future water security, demonstrating
that we are at a critical juncture in Alberta’s system of water allocation. The inability to obtain
new water from the Bow River for the Balzac development proposed in January 2006, resulted
in a proposal to pipe water well over 200 km from the Red Deer River, which prompted outrage
from residents of that basin.
Then, in August 2007, the Eastern Irrigation District (EI D) applied to Alberta Ministry of
Environment for an amendment to its licence that would expand the purposes of use beyond
traditional agricultural and irrigation purposes. The proposal provoked an outcry from a number
of organizations, who warned that approving the EID amendment would effectively move
Alberta’s water market beyond the light of public scrutiny
- Fight to the last Drop
- EcoJustice
Calgary and Climate Change
Calgary is Canada’s fastest growing city, on pace to break through the one million population mark by 2009. The greater Calgary area, which includes Cochrane, Airdrie, Bragg Creek and Chestermere, relies solely on water from the Bow and Elbow Rivers, which have their headwaters high in the snow pack and glaciers of Alberta’s Rocky Mountains. The waters of the Bow and Elbow flow eastward as part of the South Saskatchewan River Basin, eventually reaching the Arctic Ocean via Hudson’s Bay. Every user who withdraws water from the Bow/Elbow watershed is licensed by Alberta Environment.
Calgary is licensed for an annual average withdrawal of 626.4 megalitres (ML)/day from the Bow River. This combined with production from the Glenmore Reservoir on the Elbow River gives a total production capacity of 1,000 ML/day. Calgary currently uses about 46% of the total annual volume allowed under the provincial licenses. But the unused portion of Calgary’s water allocation is valid only if there is sufficient water available in the rivers to divert.
In the face of population growth, the city has been successful in reducing per capita water use through system improvements and demand measures. For now, Calgary can meet water demand within its license allotment. The essential questions posed in this research study were:
- Will the Bow River be able to meet future demand as temperature and
population increase?
- When will the future demand exceed approved license limits?
The modelling undertaken through this study is the first to quantify the future impacts of climate change on water supply in relation to demand for Calgary. The results suggest that the city will need to achieve a 50% reduction in per capita use by 2064 in order to provide a sustainable water supply. Even then, cyclical climate patterns indicate particularly low river flow and higher temperature periods in the 2060s that could lead to water demand exceeding supply allotments.
- Climate Change and the Planning Process - NRCan - City of Calgary
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