Canada’s Energy Hub Declares Emergency After Water Main Break

(Bloomberg) -- Calgary, the center of the Canadian oil and gas industry, declared a state of emergency after discovering that repairs on a major broken water main will take longer than expected.

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A water feeder main break affecting the water supply will take three to five weeks longer to repair than originally anticipated after new vulnerable areas of concern were discovered, the city said in a press release on Saturday.

“The decision to declare a State of Local Emergency was not taken lightly, and it was done to ensure we are prepared for all eventualities in the drive to have this water feeder main restoration work done as quickly and safely as possible,” Mayor Jyoti Gondek said in the release.

The city enacted a Municipal Emergency Plan on June 5 after the water main break was discovered. Originally, residents were told to not wash dishes and to avoid showering while repairs were made. Since then, those restrictions have been loosened to not watering lawns and other outdoor plants.

Calgary has boomed since the end of the Covid-19 pandemic, as its cheaper cost-of-living compared to Canadian cities like Vancouver and Toronto attracted an inflow of migrants.

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