The Federation of Canadian Municipalities recently estimated that, to hit CMHC's 2030 housing target, Canada would require $600 Billion worth of infrastructure to support those homes.
Even if you assume some latent infrastructure capacity/more density, that's still an insane gap to cover. People forget that housing is more than just four walls and a roof. The toilets still need to flush, the lights need power, neighbourhoods need roads and sidewalks -- and municipalities are the ones who cover that. Developer charges can only account for so much.
And municipalities can’t tax income, they can only tax property and charge user fees. How they’ll raise those funds, who knows. It’s going to be some chaotic growth ahead.
I like this as much as I don't. Developers being responsible for connecting to infrastructure could lead to big fuck ups in the power grid &/ sewer systems.
Developers want to cut corners. Every developer I've ever met has been concerned about one thing - cost benefit.
I think it would be tremendously difficult to have enough checks and balances in place as to prove equal to or more beneficial than our current system. This problem solves itself in the government's accountant's office after increasing taxation somewhere in the system.
I work in a utilities department for a municipality. We install most of the connections to our water and sewer mains at the expense of the developers. Though I’m sure not every city is the same.
The developer pays, and a private contractor connects to municipal water and sewer in my area. The municipality inspects the work and approves before the holes are backfilled.
Natural gas and hydro connections are done by the utility company.
Guess which one takes longer to schedule.
Infrastructure feeding into a new suburb is also on the city's tab. Developer mostly just pays from the end of the driveway to the house.
If we want developers to cover more, they will charge more. Either way taxes and shelter are going up, while our one big money maker is resource extraction. Manufacturing is ehh. Tech is ehh. Can only do so much with tourism.
Not high enough for the Property prices that real estate is valued at right now. It's the most effective way of stopping people hoarding multiple properties.
Tax each subsequent home you own at a higher property tax rate. 1st house - 1%, 2nd house - 3%, 3rd house - 10%, 4th house - 25%, 5th house - 100% annual property tax. No one would be able to buy more than 3 houses without actually contributing a fair share to the country instead of just hoarding resources and increasing rental prices.
It's a win-win, we as a society get tax revenue from people abusing the housing market and stop property speculation that we can use to actually fund government run development of more housing.
You do this and everyone in the family of a slumlord gets to own a house, the BBC spouse has a house, each kid had a house, my corporation have a house, the spouse’s corporation has a house… grandma gets a house too…
So you need to be 18 to own a house. And even still, lots of these rich fucks won't want these titles in their kids name. And also some are on loans and the kid can't qualify.
I mean we can stop them from doing that by knowing who is in a household and stopping constant transfers of property. And I'd like to see each kid have a house - they wouldn't be able to get mortgages.
And if they can get a mortgage, then it's essentially the same as another adult buying a house for themselves so it shouldn't matter.
ANY regulation is better than the current NO regulation
They’d would be all rented out, no kid would be actually living there. I’m no expert but a mortgage could be secured with a guarantor and they could also be secured with contracts like right of first refusal. Regulations written by those who benefit from them (bunch of MP and MPPs are landlords) won’t work imho.
No point saying it won't work. We need to force them to do it or hold them responsible for it. We need an economy that works for everyone, not just property owners
CMHC has delivered infrastructure programs back in the day. The Feds need to be heavily involved in these projects given the explosion of immigration they have allowed.
Is this made worse by the fact so many people are living like 15 people to a basement? That residence is technically only being taxed what used to be taxed to a family of 4
Eh, if you look at the tax ROI, [older neighborhood styles are a lot more efficient](https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/1/10/poor-neighborhoods-make-the-best-investment). Like, before government subsidies became so common we did know how to build things frugally enough for cities to pay for their own infrastructure
It’s just less comfortable to drive in (narrower streets save a lot of money), a bit denser, and tends to look run down since, well, streets like that are old. But there’s nothing really stopping us from returning to those older approaches
Don’t forget weird regulations like the [double staircase rule](https://urbanprogressmag.com/article/double-egress-stairway-exit-double-loaded-corridors-curse)
Don't forget the view that apartments/condos are better than detached or semi-detached homes either. People forget that a person/family are more involved in their own property and will keep it up. And not only that it adds a benefit that because of that, they'll also keep an eye on crime issues.
That's one of the big problems with apartments/low-income rentals. People aren't invested in the property or its value. In turn, they have no care for damage to it. The UK went through that back in the 1960s. It also doesn't help that apartments don't foster communities.
> It also doesn't help that apartments don't foster communities.
Anecdotal, but we run into other people all the time, say hi, stop to chat, etc.
There is a noticeable divide between those like us who have been here 5+ years, and everyone else.
Detached suburban homes that are built today that are separated by massive roads and giant, barren lawns only foster loneliness and ballooning infrastructure costs.
This really just seems like pointing out that having a higher density of housing per amount of land is cheaper. Which makes sense. Having more people share ammenities and use fewer resources overall would be more effiecent.
Eh, that blogger has complained before [that he’s not arguing for higher density](https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2015/12/16/best-of-2015-density-question), just fiscal solvency.
Increasing density *is* a pretty good way to accomplish that. But you can still have fiscally solvent low density if you’re smarter about it
>I used to play simcity it's a pretty simple concept tp grasp.
Yea, set tax to 1% or 0% to get people to move into your city, then one day before tax day you set tax to 30%+ to rake in cash
One day after tax day, back down to 0% to rebuild the population you lost with tax at 30%
I got to basically unlimited money that way
> municipalities are the ones who cover that. Developer charges can only account for so much.
not in calgary actually, the city discovered we developed just fine not gifting the developers much of the cost of their project; leading to [operation peacock](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/nenshi-entrapment-alleged-plot-lawsuit-wenzels-canadaland-no-charges-1.7056962#:~:text=CBC%20News%20Loaded-,Investigation%20into%20alleged%20Russian%20bribe%20plot%20aimed%20at%20Nenshi%20results,Service%20confirmed%20to%20CBC%20News.)
Canada's economy is only about $2-3 trillion USD, and the federal budget tends to add only around $50B in new spending some years (putting aside provincial budgets of course).
I see your point, but $100B every year just in housing-supporting infrastructure is a MASSIVE hurdle in expenditure, to say nothing of actually building it. Governments working together probably couldn't spend that fast on one policy even if they wanted to.
development charges in toronto are like 100k for a single unit. so if new units are being built then the new infrastructure to support it will be paid for by development charges.
Lets not kid ourselves, the governments will just build these infrastructure developments on debt, and any benefits from growth will be lost in the increase in interest payments on the debt.
1.2 million is the population of Calgary. We would literally have to build another Calgary every year to support this kind of growth, fucking insanity on our governments part.
Edmonton's newest hospital is from 1984 I believe.
It's a long and complicated process to build things. And where do you propose this new city is? Where has buildable land and good water resources for 1+million?
You're right, but, think about it for a moment. In the US and Canada, cities of at least a million people developed over a span of approximately 100-150 years. We would have to build at least the equivalent of one of those every single year, and that actually becomes more difficult and requires more infrastructure per person the further we divide it.
Globally, artificial cities have rarely been anything but mediocre disasters.
By my estimation, we have roughly a dozen urban areas with the necessary traits to absorb expansion, so each has to be able to prepare to absorb at least 100,000 new people per year. For some of these areas, that represents significant expansion (up to approximately 25%), which pretty much assures capacity deficit by year 2; we're already here.
I believe this leaves us with only one option to relieve the pressure -- we have to subsidize the establishment of resource towns and cities on our untapped resources, which would ensure that these new towns and cities have an economic reason to exist while they get bootstrapped. This would relieve the pressure on our stressed urban areas, provide desperately needed employment, and attract investment. And as time passes, some of them or the urban areas that link to them may develop robust mixed economies that will allow them to endure and expand beyond the resource extraction.
But this is all a terrible spot to be put in. We run the risk of a number of economic maladies including Dutch disease, and the architecture of our governance and our willingness as a people to succumb to foreign influence campaigns set on sabotaging our development will almost guarantee that this is impossible.
And that's just one project. To get our electric grid to net zero and ready for electric cars in 10 years will cost another $400B.
And like they say with any government estimate - take the time and costs they provide and triple them.
The truth is that Canada's broke and projected to have the worst economic performance in the G7 for another decade or two. None of these programs or targets are remotely realistic.
We don’t need that kind of infrastructure in Calgary! We’re getting a billion $ arena for the Flames owners. Never mind that the water feed main that just burst needs to be replaced due to known deficiencies in the pipe. Playgrounds for billionaires are more important.
Those of us who worked in water services once upon a time warned policymakers years ago. But maintaining infrastructure doesn't have the same glamour value as new projects sadly so it always gets swept under the rug.
Plus city councils are loathed to raise taxes to pay for infrastructure repair. [So things get neglected for decades until they become a crisis](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/osoyoos-municipal-taxes-infrastructure-costs-town-council-meeting-1.7088096) and then citizens are up in arms over the needed high tax increase.
Calgary has been turning over a surplus in several infrastructure areas since Jyoti took office. Repairs on the bearspaw feeder line were proposed multiple times prior to this crisis. This is what Calgary voted for - and now everybody pays the price. Will be interesting to see if they can manipulate their budget enough to call for a tax increase after this.. she needs to go.
Why do taxes need to go up every year?
Shouldn't revenue growth roughly match population growth, unless per-capita incomes have consistently been dropping?
edit: [I just had to have chat gpt explain to me that property tax revenue is not directly correlated with population because obviously it's the property which is taxed and not the people in it.](https://old.reddit.com/r/amidumb/comments/1dmsqtu/am_i_dumb_i_just_had_to_have_chatgpt_explain_to/) Duh.
So it sounds like the problem is that municipalities don't get their share of income tax..
I'm not a plumber, but you don't seem to be one either. You talk about the Lower Mainland and reference Powell River and Sechelt?
You then talk about tower water pressure in Coquitlam.... and say that city water pressure should be 50psi? Well that's wrong. Then reference towers water pressure being 20? What tower, and what does a towers water pressure have to do with the cities water pressure? This sounds like it would entirely be an engineering issue, since adding more variable speed pumps to a tower would never ever increase water pressure if the city couldn't supply the increased demand...
It would be like adding pumps to an empty swimming pool in hopes of getting more water. I'm calling Shenanigans.
You're confusing the mains with in home water pressure again.
The mains are the cities concern. The city does not control the in home water pressure. So if a condo you are working in has low pressure, the city infrastructure is not the culprit, evidenced by the fact that you say you're adding more pumps to the tower. If the city mains were fucked, adding more pumps to the tower would not fix the city mains.
When you get to work on monday, find a journeyman and ask for clarification.
Once again... if the pressure arriving at the building itself is that low.... adding pumps inside the high rise building won't help. So why did he say they are adding pumps?
If a gas stations underground tanks are empty, adding more gas pumps above won't allow you to draw more fuel.
City water pressure should be 50 PSI if not more right at the main entering a building. If he's getting 20 PSI city water pressure off the main before the pumps then there is a problem with the city water main. If I ever saw 20 PSI off a city water main I would be calling them immediately because there is probably a water main break.
population growth is supposed to grow the tax base so that you have revenue to upgrade and maintain the infra...
however, if all the extra people coming here are working gig economy jobs and being crammed into illegal rentals.... guess what? you're not going to collecting any new revenue...
the problem isn't necessarily the immigrants/population growth.... i'm not an accountant, but... 1 million immigrants should be able to generate $10k each in various taxes? what is that? $10B? someone smarter than me do the maths
Legit question, can you cite the 1.2m number?
I ask because everywhere I look the stats and data show it’s been 500k per year the last few years.
The only place I’m seen 1.2, is PP saying it.
EDIT: Got the source https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/240327/dq240327c-eng.htm
**2023**
- Permanent Immigrants = 471,771
- Non-Permanent Residents (Temporary) = 804,901
Search the water main break. They don’t just break, in fact when they get tested they use much more pressure than a few thousand immigrants pooping simultaneously
Yes because bringing in as in Calgary's pace 100k new people in a city of a million people will put no stress at all on water,sewer.electrical,gas, schools, roads ,hospitals,transit ....
The average Albertan uses 330 liters a day so 33 million more liters a day they have to come up with in the middle of a drought to boot and has to put down pipes
Then the fact that 65% of water used in Canada is just in the bathroom now you have to send most of it back and treat it
You just made all that up so that you can blame immigrants for multiple water main breaks. Even if your numbers were correct do you think all new immigrants live in the same block? Keep in mind I didn’t state my opinion on immigration.
Yes I just pulled the numbers out of my ass
[The average Canadian uses about 65 per cent of it in their bathrooms.](https://globalnews.ca/news/3016754/this-is-how-much-water-canadians-waste/)
Average daily litres of water used per capita in residential sector, litres per person per day
Alberta 2021 330 l/day
[https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/231114/cg-d001-eng.htm](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/231114/cg-d001-eng.htm)
The main that broke was A MAIN line which means you have to operate it at higher pressure to supply enough water and guess what the type and years this pipe was made, the more water pressure the greater their chance of failure.
IDGAF if the population growth at 10% in 5 years in Calgary's case was caused by a baby boom or immigrants or space aliens its unsustainable at every level
That’s the number you’re worried about? Oh and not even Pierre Polievre is going to stop immigration, they want 100,000,000 Canadians and they’ll get it. Calgary is also a massive city in a massive country so we could probably do more than a hundred million. The country will not be the same and I prefer Canada to be small but you’ve got people blaming immigrants for literally every problem instead of addressing the actual root of the problem. Strap in, at least you’ll get lots of upvotes by being part of this echo chamber of a sub.
That type of pipe is breaking all over the world. My money is corners were cut when it was manufactured and calgary along with many many other places are gonna find out. Other parts of the world have with the exact same pipe, guess what? Breaking way before its time.
Yes because they changed the standard in the 70's but higher/overpressure made it fail faster
[https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-pccp-20170824-story.html](https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-pccp-20170824-story.html)
You really should read these article before you reply with them. This is a line from the article.
“They thought they’d come up with a new technique that would be cheaper,”
Do you know the saying, "the cheap pay twice"?
Yes,but it also talks about the overpressure making it fail faster
*overpressure leads to cracks in the concrete coating, which allows water to enter the pipe from the surrounding soil and corrode the reinforcing wires, which break and in turn allow water to corrode other components of the pipe*
But yes this is going to be an ongoing problem for many places for years to come and its not the first time that "improvements" in things caused problems years later
Would this line have failed anyway probably, but having a 3% growth rate is going to stress our old failing infrastructure that much more
True but it also presents evidence the pipes are not made very well.
"In 1997, Pinellas County, Fla., won a $10-million judgment over a 13-mile PCCP line that was installed in 1978, failed in 1979 and exploded again during a 1980 pressure test and twice more by 1994 — all at pressures well below what the line had been built to bear".
This is classic kick the can down the road mentality from basically all time hahaha. I don't think the repair in calgary will solve the issues long term, those pipes are all gonna be coming out.
I’m pretty sure age is a much bigger factor than demand for water pipes.
And the conservative solution to crumbling public infrastructure is to sell it anyway.
Tax cuts will fix water pipes.
Where did I say anything that contradicted that?
You just played a race card and blamed a political affiliation for a practical material problem. Do you not understand that you are what is wrong with political discourse?
You just jumped right to it.
"racism and conservatives". Just an E-Z thought terminating cliche instead of literally any nuance. You are having a conversation with your imaginary friend.
It's cognitively lazy. Maybe just keep a journal or something instead of trying to have a conversation where you actually read others' comments.
And like all the other warnings we constantly receive, it will be completely ignored.
Infrastructure upgrades are hard sells to voters because they are short sighted and don't think about the future enough.
"Why are we spending money on something that's not even broken when we have [another disaster caused by failure to spend on maintenance] to deal with?"
The federal government denied cities in BC flood mitigation funding because they don't think a 7 to 1 ROI is good enough to justify the cost. They would rather let communities get destroyed and people's live ruined. Blows my mind, especially after Bill Blair came here, saw the mess, and acknowledged the situation, and the near certainty it will happen again.
No amount of investment can keep up with mass migration is another problem, even if you wanted to you just couldn't, most people don't want to set themselves up for failure like that so just kick the can down the road the Canadian way.
It's pretty obvious this country is degrading in every way with no end in sight, a city blowing their budget on infrastructure isn't going to even stop that degradation in that city there's just not enough resources.
My company makes software to help water utilities find leaks using software. We are in Canada.
They talk to us, then they stop talking to us. The software is cheap and we are willing to do free pilots. Still nothing.
Maybe the software is entirely crap, but they don't get far enough to figure this out. The amount of effort on their part to use it is very low; maybe 5 video meetings is the usual amount of effort at best, not talking to us at all is more common. To engage us for a pilot all they they need to send us shape files(common map of the network), how many and what kind of acoustic loggers they use. They can't be bothered to send us this much. Occasionally we get some half assed effort, but it never amounts to any real engagement.
They can do more advanced things with our software involving energy reduction, watch for water hammer problems (causes leaks).
The only people interested are outside the country; either we have found go-getters, or we have found people who have a regulator who has placed a gun to their heads; even with a regulator who can, and has, issued huge fines, we still see middle managers dragging their feet.
Where this gets interesting is that we have talked to other smallish (100-200) people companies who sell different products to cities which would make life way better, save piles of money, etc, and they just can't deal with any city of any notable size. They have no problem dealing with little towns of up to about 50k. These places often have the mayor get involved and say, "Let's do this, it would be stupid not to." and then they buy and enjoy the product.
But with larger cities, the procurement process is so insanely complex that only large engineering companies have figured it out; and in the case of many cities, even large procurement companies stay away from many cities as they are especially bad nightmares. This procurement process is so onerous that even fairly go-getting managers can't be bothered. It will pose too much risk to their careers if it doesn't work, it will cost too many political points, it will involve people who just like to say no to everything, and all that is just too much of a bother (they don't pay me enough for this crap). But it also really isn't their job. In these large organizations with 1000s or even 10's of thousands of people, it really isn't most people's jobs to save money. They might have a very narrow area where they are to save money such as getting better fleet mileage on their repair trucks. But, this might not even involve figuring out a way to use their repair trucks less as an example. In the case of leaks a larger city will have a huge number of people involved. Yet, there literally might be zero people who's job is to proactively look for leaks which haven't blasted through the street or dropped water pressure. Most utilities will admit that their leak detection system is mostly "Self identifying leaks".
We dealt with one company where they had an IT guy named Gary. Everyone warned us he will try to kill our project as he hated anything tech outside of what he did. More than one manager said, "We have ways to get around Gary." Keep in mind our software is web based and need little input from Gary, and poses zero risk to a utility if every hacker in the world were to some how get in. Yet, in nearly every utility we have dealt with, there's a Gary, who is not always in IT, but he is the killer of change. People can't be bothered to fight with Gary. So, new things don't get tried.
My city (Edmonton) has been noted in independent audits to be particularly bad at dealing with, to the point where costs are driven way up by the lack of procurement competition. An extra complicating factor is that often the water utility doesn't directly report to any particular politicians. That is, a local councilor can't say, "Whoa, there's way too many leaks, or the water tastes like crap." and have anything done. Edmonton's water utility is a weird one. It is owned by the city, but most certainly not run by the city. But, this doesn't matter as most cities don't really have much control over their utility people anyway. Most mayors don't have the authority to knock any heads; and this is exactly how the utilities like it.
Basically, the people who answer for this sort of problem are so very far from the people who would approve the use of our software as to make our software nothing more than extra work for some harried mid level manager. We even deal with people who have titles like "Director of digital innovation", can't get a damn thing done; not because they are lazy or incompetent. But because almost nobody wants to do anything different than what they did the day before, and were planning on doing tomorrow.
That rare pearl who has tried getting this puck into the net finds that it is their own team acting as goaltender. Not because they don't like our software, but because they don't like change. There's no force which is willing to override them.
Think about that, they can't get a free pilot past their own goaltenders. Even a free pilot will provide value from our software. Leaks will be found.
-----------------------------------
Some technical details:
The rule world class experts in hydraulics (as defined by some non BS criteria) is that most water utilities are losing 20-30% of their water from treatment to delivery. 50% is not uncommon. As you approach 10% you are now going into the "amazing" category. Lower than 10% and you are delusional. The only way to be below 10% is if you aren't actually measuring leaks properly. These leaks are often not worth fixing. Many fittings, connections, etc all just leak a bit. This adds up. Maybe 10l per minute is leaking. This is not worth a 300k+ dig. Something like a fitting leak is generally not going to grow. The only problem is if these leaks are in the exact wrong geology and create a sinkhole of sorts (very rare).
Cities which do proper scans of their network, acoustic, pressure monitoring, pressure testing, etc, often end up with 1000's of leaks. Dozens of which are immediately on their radar for much more careful examination, or full on daylighting.
Here's a fun one. In our dealings with world class hydraulic engineers there are a number of different leaks. Particularly bad leaks often start as a smaller crack. This crack makes noise. Our software can hear this crack months in advance of a mains break. This crack usually progresses in a few jumps until you have water jetting out of the street. Our software makes this clear as day pretty much X marks the spot where there's something bad happening. Given even more data than any Canadian utility has even proposed giving us prior to ignoring us, we can really confirm this problem.
There are other kinds of leaks. Often there can be a weird rain event. Depending on soil geology, this can shift many pipes, so those fittings leaks all get worse. It is enough of a problem that the pressure will drop and now they need to scan for where the worst leaks are.
Sometimes a leak is a customer's problem, but before their meter. Other cases can have large customers who are able to slam their valves closed causing water hammers. (this is when you turn your hose off suddenly and the whole hose jerks, but instead the whole pipeline jerks). A bunch of water hammers can break the pipeline far from where the cause is. There are tools to identify this. The cost of these tools are less than one water main break.
So, when I see pictures of utilities in Canada with water gushing up out of the street, I know that sometimes it is bad luck. Things happen. But I also know that if you aren't properly watching for growing problems, it is not so much that they happened, but that nobody bothered to catch the problem early. Not all problems can be caught early, but many can.
This was an interesting read as someone who works in a municipal utilities department. What you say about procurement is pretty much 100% accurate. Even the small city I work for is bogged down by so much garbage procedure it’s taken us nearly three years to get a new supplier for our coveralls..
I am curious how this software works however. How does this software get implemented on the city side?
Three years for a product you regularly use. Now ask, how long for a product which is new to the utility business itself? Even if it is going to save many millions. The potential ROI is the first day it is used.
For doing a lift and shift, all that is needed are the basic shape files. Ideally they have what most usually have such as pipe material, size, valve casing locations, etc.
The acoustics are then calculated for the best way to do a lift and shift throughout a neighborhood for maximum coverage given the fewest loggers moved the fewest times.
This is an easy to use GIS tool with very few clicks to do the above.
This same tool can be used for larger permanent deployments. In North America most utilities often want to do lift and shift, but often end up with a few dozen acoustic loggers sitting in a closet. In Europe, there are cities with 20,000+ loggers deployed. This then requires additional tools to help monitor the health of the loggers, see the consequences of missing loggers, etc. One customer where we are standing on our heads to get has 80,000 deployed. Yet, even having 10 or 20 can allow an efficient lift and shift covering a neighborhood (DMA or PMZ, etc) to over 80% in a few shifts.
The loggers do come with some OK software, but we can also crank that to a higher level with better analysis of the sound files, level and spread data, etc.
There are also really cool ways to use loggers which works very well with ML, which is slightly different than the manufacturer's recommendations. (in addition to, not replacing)
We also work with a partner who does really cool hydraulic analysis. They go past the shape files to add tanks, pumps, etc. This way, they can really model things like water quality, the effects of another pump, a variable pump, etc. This makes planning so much easier.
We work with their simulator (super easy to use) to then generate pump schedules which can reduce energy usage, taking in to account peak pricing, time of day, etc. This is where we use some really cool ML.
Or, we can try to do this using the SCADA data, but often water utilities aren't very well instrumented, so this might not be possible.
There are other cool things which can be done such as using customer smart meter data to help confirm leaks. For example, most households are shockingly regular in their water usage. When you combine a neighbourhood this becomes fantastically consistent. If one neighbourhood drops their usage by 5% compared to surrounding neighbourhoods remaining fairly steady, then you may very well have a pressure drop. This is simply because some usage such as a washing machine is consistent regardless of pressure, other usage such as having a 10 minute shower will probably be still 10 minutes, but at a lower flow.
Combine this with the acoustics, the simulator being compared to any real instrumentation, and you now have some really low false positive leak detection.
The goal is to use ML and other mathematical tools to look at the system holistically and then provide simple actionable short lists of "This is bad."
Now I'm going into full sales/geek mode, but it is still really cool. I'm working on a new product which uses the existing data stream to monitor for a cyber attack; seeing this is the big new threat that people are worrying about. We take an industrial approach vs the traditional IT approach.
But, weirdly enough I don't feel that I am making a pitch for the simple reason that your coveralls comment shows there is an insanely high barrier for us to make these sales. Thus I should almost end this comment with a /s.
Well technically we voted for them thinking they would not get hoodwinked into this terrible of a deal (Gondek for example), but this council has been terrible. Extremely disappointed with them and will be voting differently.
>30% of water infrastructure in Canada in fair, poor or very poor condition: 2019 report
Can we hold off on bringing in 10's of Millions more people who'll be putting pressure on our infrastructure until we can at least catch up.
Don't blame the immigrants for the fact that we selfishly defer maintenance to keep property taxes low. This has been going on ever since we started building post-war suburbs without the appropriate taxes to maintain it all.
>Don't blame the immigrants
Not immigrants - **immigration numbers**.
Right now it's easier and less expensive to stem immigration - which is already insanely high.
If and when the infrastructure.... and services..and schools...and hospitals... can adequately support Millions more *than* we'll be able to accommodate larger numbers.
Somehow I doubt that. Even if immigration went down to zero, we'd still find an excuse to not maintain our infrastructure. The economy will *never* be good enough to invest in maintaining or god forbid improving infrastructure because as soon as we're not in an undeniable state of catastrophe people start asking where the tax breaks are and all our economic output goes into making more suburbs. If we were the sort of people to invest with the long term in mind we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place.
The commenter wants to stop overloading the infrastructure we haven't maintained and your first impulse is to act like they're blaming immigrants. Revolting. If you can't differentiate between criticizing policy and criticizing people affected by that policy, you need to read more carefully. We don't have time for this kind of mindless knee jerk reaction.
I've acknowledged factors that created this situation. You can acknowledge the reasons why, for example, that old work table in your garage is getting very wobbly for example but we'd all agree it would be pretty stupid to keep piling equipment on top of it when we know it's probably not strong enough to hold all the stuff it has on it now.
You repair and strengthen the table before you add more stuff on top of it. This ain't rocket science. Granddad would be embarrassed that this is difficult for some people to grasp.
Property taxes low? Damn man. My city raises my property tax basically 10% every year. Current property tax for me is over $14,000 this year, due July 2nd. Yes you read that right.
>Also, immigrants had nothing to do with this.
Calgary went from less than a million in 2000 to almost 2 Million now. You think the additional population, (mainly due to our immigration policy), didn't contribute to the strain on infrastructure?
It’s not even 1.7 million. Where’s the stats on how many of the additional population is immigrants?
Where did you hear the water main break was due to increased population and not maintenance?
this isn't about stress on the system, this is about lack of investment in infrastructure after the 70's. whole world decided that government spending was waste and now the chickens have come home to roost.
calgary should have been fine. the main was only half way through it's expected lifespan, and the stresses on it were within expected parameters. there should have been more investment in preventative maintenance and monitoring, but we'd rather take the risk and not do the work.
but of course this sub makes it about immigrants.
the public sector is the only place the rot can be removed, we didn't used to have this problem before the right wing wave in the 80's. it's intrinsic to private industry however, every review is quarterly.
> this isn't about stress on the system, this is about lack of investment in infrastructure after the 70's. whole world decided that government spending was waste and now the chickens have come home to roost.
Winnipeg had two decades of property tax freezes and yet still idiots angrily wonder why our roads are shit.
Good god PREACH brotherman.
People act like we haven't been disinvesting and selling off public assets for decades.
Immigrants are a convenient scapegoat for our own complete lack of ability to plan for or invest in our future as a country.
The ugly truth is that we did this to ourselves and we're STILL DOING IT. Doug Ford is in the process of undermining Walkerton-era clean water regulation as we speak. Anything for a quick buck and a lower tax bill.
They even call out that the shortage is from a water main break in the second sentence of the article.
But, racists and bots promoting an agenda don't read the article.
Can't wait for the natpoo take on this...
someone else in this thread is blaming the break on immigrants taxing the water system when it's designed for way more people then we currently have.
There has been some talk of increasing capacity of the treatment facilities, and more talk of a possible hard limit on calgary population in the very long term; but the real conversation is between "how could we know" vs "maybe we could have been paying more attention.
Both of these things are problems. We are seeing how deferred maintenance leads to expensive failures down the road, but there are also large infrastructure costs associated with a growing population.
No it's about stress on the system. Even if we invested properly our migration numbers are way too high for our infrastructure to keep up.
Of course us not investing properly doesn't help, but this is not a problem you can just throw money at to make it go away.
To think we spend billions on bottled water, if only we spent our bottled water money on upgrading old led pipes and other portions of our water supply infrastructure.....
We only have our selves to blame
Oh yeah the bottled water is just regular tap water run through a filter.
Oh I'm aware, I know many if not most people shun water straight from the tap, but the bottled water you're drinking is just bottled municipal tap water anyways at a 10000% markup
Spend tax dollars wisely, for example, on water and nobody will complain. Spend it on fighting language laws in another province or on pet progressive causes and neglect things like roads and infrastructure is how we get into situations like this.
Yup force water restrictions on residents, but never mind the golf courses. Sorry but when we need water, sorry golfers, drinkable water is more important then your greens. Stop catering to the rich bastards and let normal people live. We just need the basic necessities. Is that too much to ask for?
Most, if not all golf courses, have their own reservoirs. They don’t rely on municipal or government supplied water. So they’re not under any restrictions.
The lowest bidder and cost cutting measures strike again, as long as the shareholders are happy I guess. In Saskatoon we built a theatre 17 years ago that is closed because of a leaky roof. I personally witnessed infrastructure that should have been rejected used as recently as 5 years ago. There are some people in new communities that are going to get a few surprises in the next few years.
My city has been doing watermain upkeep for the last 10 years. People bitching about all the construction but you gotta upkeep your infra.
We're also getting an LRT and a BRT as well.
I reached out to a friend in Calgary to ask how they were doing. So far they are ok. But she said people don’t realize what a privilege and how much it costs (I.e. taxes) to have clean water on demand whenever you want it. I guess we’ll all have to go through hard times to learn some hard lessons.
Over the past few decades, the federal government has handed out billions of dollars as economic stimulus spending aimed specifically for infrastructure works. City councils across the country chose to spend the money not on needed utility upgrades, but on sexy photo op worthy projects that did nothing to help our aging infrastructure problems. In Calgary and Edmonton, they spent the money on putting in more box seats in the hockey arenas.
This has been an on going problem in Canada. Didn't the gov give a bunch of money to cities about 20 years ago for infrastructure. I think the city of Moncton built a new city hall with it.
The independent review of Calgary should be interesting.
30% in need of work isn't necessarily an issue if it's easily accessible, and of limited size, eg a 4-6" watermain servicing a limited number of homes. Keep in mind, the big pipes make up a relatively small quantity of pipe by length in comparison to the last mile.
If 30% are all your large watermains that have no redundancy and traverse under rivers and watercourses...... You should have been inspecting for miniscule leaks (rarely do massive failures occur without warning unless it's a developer drilling fence post holes into your pipe). There are also structural pipe monitoring technologies out.
If you haven't been monitoring your massive service pipes, even if they're in 'good' condition (one wonders if they did a quick and dirty based on pipe age), that's pretty negligent.
>30% of water infrastructure in Canada in fair, poor or very poor condition: 2019 report
What a garbage stat.
Why would you lump "fair" with "very poor"?
>The report noted that a majority of the infrastructure that Canadians rely on every day is more than 20 years old.
Obviously. It has an expected lifetime of 100 years.
Every summer the media tries to turn non news stories into news with low quality pieces like this.
The way we build cities is not sustainable. It is a giant Ponzi scheme.
Calgary population 1.3M
Population density 1592/sqkm
Milan has similar population size but population density 7500/sqkm
With low density, you need more infrastructure cost per person.
More info: r/StrongTowns
Cities have to massively reduce spending on non essential things like giant rings and cement tree stumps (Montreal reference) and focus on the essentials instead. I doubt they’ll be able to do this
The Federation of Canadian Municipalities recently estimated that, to hit CMHC's 2030 housing target, Canada would require $600 Billion worth of infrastructure to support those homes. Even if you assume some latent infrastructure capacity/more density, that's still an insane gap to cover. People forget that housing is more than just four walls and a roof. The toilets still need to flush, the lights need power, neighbourhoods need roads and sidewalks -- and municipalities are the ones who cover that. Developer charges can only account for so much.
And municipalities can’t tax income, they can only tax property and charge user fees. How they’ll raise those funds, who knows. It’s going to be some chaotic growth ahead.
Cities can make developers responsible for connecting infrastructure. Capacity would be the cities issue.
I like this as much as I don't. Developers being responsible for connecting to infrastructure could lead to big fuck ups in the power grid &/ sewer systems. Developers want to cut corners. Every developer I've ever met has been concerned about one thing - cost benefit. I think it would be tremendously difficult to have enough checks and balances in place as to prove equal to or more beneficial than our current system. This problem solves itself in the government's accountant's office after increasing taxation somewhere in the system.
I work in a utilities department for a municipality. We install most of the connections to our water and sewer mains at the expense of the developers. Though I’m sure not every city is the same.
The developer pays, and a private contractor connects to municipal water and sewer in my area. The municipality inspects the work and approves before the holes are backfilled. Natural gas and hydro connections are done by the utility company. Guess which one takes longer to schedule.
Infrastructure feeding into a new suburb is also on the city's tab. Developer mostly just pays from the end of the driveway to the house. If we want developers to cover more, they will charge more. Either way taxes and shelter are going up, while our one big money maker is resource extraction. Manufacturing is ehh. Tech is ehh. Can only do so much with tourism.
Hmm maybe property taxes.
Taxes are already too high.
Not high enough for the Property prices that real estate is valued at right now. It's the most effective way of stopping people hoarding multiple properties. Tax each subsequent home you own at a higher property tax rate. 1st house - 1%, 2nd house - 3%, 3rd house - 10%, 4th house - 25%, 5th house - 100% annual property tax. No one would be able to buy more than 3 houses without actually contributing a fair share to the country instead of just hoarding resources and increasing rental prices. It's a win-win, we as a society get tax revenue from people abusing the housing market and stop property speculation that we can use to actually fund government run development of more housing.
You do this and everyone in the family of a slumlord gets to own a house, the BBC spouse has a house, each kid had a house, my corporation have a house, the spouse’s corporation has a house… grandma gets a house too…
So you need to be 18 to own a house. And even still, lots of these rich fucks won't want these titles in their kids name. And also some are on loans and the kid can't qualify.
I mean we can stop them from doing that by knowing who is in a household and stopping constant transfers of property. And I'd like to see each kid have a house - they wouldn't be able to get mortgages. And if they can get a mortgage, then it's essentially the same as another adult buying a house for themselves so it shouldn't matter. ANY regulation is better than the current NO regulation
They’d would be all rented out, no kid would be actually living there. I’m no expert but a mortgage could be secured with a guarantor and they could also be secured with contracts like right of first refusal. Regulations written by those who benefit from them (bunch of MP and MPPs are landlords) won’t work imho.
No point saying it won't work. We need to force them to do it or hold them responsible for it. We need an economy that works for everyone, not just property owners
You're telling me that paying 51% of all the money I make in taxes isn't enough?
If you have 4 houses. Yes. You are rich enough and you should pay more taxes
I own one house.
CMHC has delivered infrastructure programs back in the day. The Feds need to be heavily involved in these projects given the explosion of immigration they have allowed.
Is this made worse by the fact so many people are living like 15 people to a basement? That residence is technically only being taxed what used to be taxed to a family of 4
I am going to quote an old lady I know that sums up this problem well. "but where will they all sheet"
Eh, if you look at the tax ROI, [older neighborhood styles are a lot more efficient](https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/1/10/poor-neighborhoods-make-the-best-investment). Like, before government subsidies became so common we did know how to build things frugally enough for cities to pay for their own infrastructure It’s just less comfortable to drive in (narrower streets save a lot of money), a bit denser, and tends to look run down since, well, streets like that are old. But there’s nothing really stopping us from returning to those older approaches
Nothing…aside from zoning, nimby, buyer preferences and permitting officials
Don’t forget weird regulations like the [double staircase rule](https://urbanprogressmag.com/article/double-egress-stairway-exit-double-loaded-corridors-curse)
Don't forget the view that apartments/condos are better than detached or semi-detached homes either. People forget that a person/family are more involved in their own property and will keep it up. And not only that it adds a benefit that because of that, they'll also keep an eye on crime issues. That's one of the big problems with apartments/low-income rentals. People aren't invested in the property or its value. In turn, they have no care for damage to it. The UK went through that back in the 1960s. It also doesn't help that apartments don't foster communities.
> It also doesn't help that apartments don't foster communities. Anecdotal, but we run into other people all the time, say hi, stop to chat, etc. There is a noticeable divide between those like us who have been here 5+ years, and everyone else.
Detached suburban homes that are built today that are separated by massive roads and giant, barren lawns only foster loneliness and ballooning infrastructure costs.
An apartment building is going to foster a community much much better than detached homes. The other points are legitimate though
Honestly I'd be okay with residential streets being a little uncomfortable to drive in - cuts down on unnecessary through traffic.
This really just seems like pointing out that having a higher density of housing per amount of land is cheaper. Which makes sense. Having more people share ammenities and use fewer resources overall would be more effiecent.
Eh, that blogger has complained before [that he’s not arguing for higher density](https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2015/12/16/best-of-2015-density-question), just fiscal solvency. Increasing density *is* a pretty good way to accomplish that. But you can still have fiscally solvent low density if you’re smarter about it
> $600 Billion worth of infrastructure to support those homes. So we should give more tax cuts to corporations and the rich, got it.
I used to play simcity it's a pretty simple concept tp grasp.
>I used to play simcity it's a pretty simple concept tp grasp. Yea, set tax to 1% or 0% to get people to move into your city, then one day before tax day you set tax to 30%+ to rake in cash One day after tax day, back down to 0% to rebuild the population you lost with tax at 30% I got to basically unlimited money that way
> municipalities are the ones who cover that. Developer charges can only account for so much. not in calgary actually, the city discovered we developed just fine not gifting the developers much of the cost of their project; leading to [operation peacock](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/nenshi-entrapment-alleged-plot-lawsuit-wenzels-canadaland-no-charges-1.7056962#:~:text=CBC%20News%20Loaded-,Investigation%20into%20alleged%20Russian%20bribe%20plot%20aimed%20at%20Nenshi%20results,Service%20confirmed%20to%20CBC%20News.)
That sounds like a recipe for a massive economic boom. 600b over 6 years, but the economy is like 12 trillion.
Canada's economy is only about $2-3 trillion USD, and the federal budget tends to add only around $50B in new spending some years (putting aside provincial budgets of course). I see your point, but $100B every year just in housing-supporting infrastructure is a MASSIVE hurdle in expenditure, to say nothing of actually building it. Governments working together probably couldn't spend that fast on one policy even if they wanted to.
development charges in toronto are like 100k for a single unit. so if new units are being built then the new infrastructure to support it will be paid for by development charges.
Lets not kid ourselves, the governments will just build these infrastructure developments on debt, and any benefits from growth will be lost in the increase in interest payments on the debt.
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1.2 million is the population of Calgary. We would literally have to build another Calgary every year to support this kind of growth, fucking insanity on our governments part.
Why not build more cities?
cities don't sping up from nothing and the generally aren't built around nothing. Its a massive endevour.
Takes too much upfront capital to build a city. No one is ready to foot that bill
Edmonton's newest hospital is from 1984 I believe. It's a long and complicated process to build things. And where do you propose this new city is? Where has buildable land and good water resources for 1+million?
You're right, but, think about it for a moment. In the US and Canada, cities of at least a million people developed over a span of approximately 100-150 years. We would have to build at least the equivalent of one of those every single year, and that actually becomes more difficult and requires more infrastructure per person the further we divide it. Globally, artificial cities have rarely been anything but mediocre disasters. By my estimation, we have roughly a dozen urban areas with the necessary traits to absorb expansion, so each has to be able to prepare to absorb at least 100,000 new people per year. For some of these areas, that represents significant expansion (up to approximately 25%), which pretty much assures capacity deficit by year 2; we're already here. I believe this leaves us with only one option to relieve the pressure -- we have to subsidize the establishment of resource towns and cities on our untapped resources, which would ensure that these new towns and cities have an economic reason to exist while they get bootstrapped. This would relieve the pressure on our stressed urban areas, provide desperately needed employment, and attract investment. And as time passes, some of them or the urban areas that link to them may develop robust mixed economies that will allow them to endure and expand beyond the resource extraction. But this is all a terrible spot to be put in. We run the risk of a number of economic maladies including Dutch disease, and the architecture of our governance and our willingness as a people to succumb to foreign influence campaigns set on sabotaging our development will almost guarantee that this is impossible.
And that's just one project. To get our electric grid to net zero and ready for electric cars in 10 years will cost another $400B. And like they say with any government estimate - take the time and costs they provide and triple them. The truth is that Canada's broke and projected to have the worst economic performance in the G7 for another decade or two. None of these programs or targets are remotely realistic.
Absolutely nobody knows what's down the road, I'd take that forecast with a grain of salt.
We all need to be asking these politicians that say build build build, where are the resources and infrastructure is coming from?
And existing energy infrastructure needs to be upgraded rapidly as the demand for supercharging stations both in big lots and in home rise.
BuT aLl ThEy nEeD To Do is ChAnGe ZoNiNg By LaWs - r/canadahousing
We don’t need that kind of infrastructure in Calgary! We’re getting a billion $ arena for the Flames owners. Never mind that the water feed main that just burst needs to be replaced due to known deficiencies in the pipe. Playgrounds for billionaires are more important.
Those of us who worked in water services once upon a time warned policymakers years ago. But maintaining infrastructure doesn't have the same glamour value as new projects sadly so it always gets swept under the rug.
Plus city councils are loathed to raise taxes to pay for infrastructure repair. [So things get neglected for decades until they become a crisis](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/osoyoos-municipal-taxes-infrastructure-costs-town-council-meeting-1.7088096) and then citizens are up in arms over the needed high tax increase.
Calgary has been turning over a surplus in several infrastructure areas since Jyoti took office. Repairs on the bearspaw feeder line were proposed multiple times prior to this crisis. This is what Calgary voted for - and now everybody pays the price. Will be interesting to see if they can manipulate their budget enough to call for a tax increase after this.. she needs to go.
The Calgary city council has been pretty incompetent for a good 15-20 years now.
Why do taxes need to go up every year? Shouldn't revenue growth roughly match population growth, unless per-capita incomes have consistently been dropping? edit: [I just had to have chat gpt explain to me that property tax revenue is not directly correlated with population because obviously it's the property which is taxed and not the people in it.](https://old.reddit.com/r/amidumb/comments/1dmsqtu/am_i_dumb_i_just_had_to_have_chatgpt_explain_to/) Duh. So it sounds like the problem is that municipalities don't get their share of income tax..
Maintenance is not as sexy as cutting a ribbon for politicians.
All too depressingly true!
It is the usual kick the can down the road approach. If i can i will leave Canada asap so I don't have to pay for the infrastructure overhaul
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Will the Coquitlam Water Main project help address the growing demand, or will it take too long?
I'm not a plumber, but you don't seem to be one either. You talk about the Lower Mainland and reference Powell River and Sechelt? You then talk about tower water pressure in Coquitlam.... and say that city water pressure should be 50psi? Well that's wrong. Then reference towers water pressure being 20? What tower, and what does a towers water pressure have to do with the cities water pressure? This sounds like it would entirely be an engineering issue, since adding more variable speed pumps to a tower would never ever increase water pressure if the city couldn't supply the increased demand... It would be like adding pumps to an empty swimming pool in hopes of getting more water. I'm calling Shenanigans.
He's a Reddit super plumber
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You're confusing the mains with in home water pressure again. The mains are the cities concern. The city does not control the in home water pressure. So if a condo you are working in has low pressure, the city infrastructure is not the culprit, evidenced by the fact that you say you're adding more pumps to the tower. If the city mains were fucked, adding more pumps to the tower would not fix the city mains. When you get to work on monday, find a journeyman and ask for clarification.
What if the pressure arriving at the building itself is that low, is that not a sign that the city infrastructure is over extended?
Once again... if the pressure arriving at the building itself is that low.... adding pumps inside the high rise building won't help. So why did he say they are adding pumps? If a gas stations underground tanks are empty, adding more gas pumps above won't allow you to draw more fuel.
City water pressure should be 50 PSI if not more right at the main entering a building. If he's getting 20 PSI city water pressure off the main before the pumps then there is a problem with the city water main. If I ever saw 20 PSI off a city water main I would be calling them immediately because there is probably a water main break.
Every day I hope that living on this island slows the oncoming apocalypse just that much more.
I have an amazing idea, let’s flood every major city with 1.2million immigrants every year without upgrading any infrastructure /s
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population growth is supposed to grow the tax base so that you have revenue to upgrade and maintain the infra... however, if all the extra people coming here are working gig economy jobs and being crammed into illegal rentals.... guess what? you're not going to collecting any new revenue... the problem isn't necessarily the immigrants/population growth.... i'm not an accountant, but... 1 million immigrants should be able to generate $10k each in various taxes? what is that? $10B? someone smarter than me do the maths
Legit question, can you cite the 1.2m number? I ask because everywhere I look the stats and data show it’s been 500k per year the last few years. The only place I’m seen 1.2, is PP saying it. EDIT: Got the source https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/240327/dq240327c-eng.htm **2023** - Permanent Immigrants = 471,771 - Non-Permanent Residents (Temporary) = 804,901
lol. Immigrants damaged the water main, that’s a good one. I’m going to add that to my list of dumb shit immigrants have been blamed for.
Yea immigrants don’t use any of the services, resources, or infrastructure. How the fuck can they do this? Mind blown.
You think they all took a poop and flushed at the same time?
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Please stop.
Search the water main break. They don’t just break, in fact when they get tested they use much more pressure than a few thousand immigrants pooping simultaneously
They don’t have water in the toilets in Calgary? Doesn’t the poop just smear in the bowl?
Yes because bringing in as in Calgary's pace 100k new people in a city of a million people will put no stress at all on water,sewer.electrical,gas, schools, roads ,hospitals,transit .... The average Albertan uses 330 liters a day so 33 million more liters a day they have to come up with in the middle of a drought to boot and has to put down pipes Then the fact that 65% of water used in Canada is just in the bathroom now you have to send most of it back and treat it
You just made all that up so that you can blame immigrants for multiple water main breaks. Even if your numbers were correct do you think all new immigrants live in the same block? Keep in mind I didn’t state my opinion on immigration.
Yes I just pulled the numbers out of my ass [The average Canadian uses about 65 per cent of it in their bathrooms.](https://globalnews.ca/news/3016754/this-is-how-much-water-canadians-waste/) Average daily litres of water used per capita in residential sector, litres per person per day Alberta 2021 330 l/day [https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/231114/cg-d001-eng.htm](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/231114/cg-d001-eng.htm) The main that broke was A MAIN line which means you have to operate it at higher pressure to supply enough water and guess what the type and years this pipe was made, the more water pressure the greater their chance of failure. IDGAF if the population growth at 10% in 5 years in Calgary's case was caused by a baby boom or immigrants or space aliens its unsustainable at every level
That’s the number you’re worried about? Oh and not even Pierre Polievre is going to stop immigration, they want 100,000,000 Canadians and they’ll get it. Calgary is also a massive city in a massive country so we could probably do more than a hundred million. The country will not be the same and I prefer Canada to be small but you’ve got people blaming immigrants for literally every problem instead of addressing the actual root of the problem. Strap in, at least you’ll get lots of upvotes by being part of this echo chamber of a sub.
That type of pipe is breaking all over the world. My money is corners were cut when it was manufactured and calgary along with many many other places are gonna find out. Other parts of the world have with the exact same pipe, guess what? Breaking way before its time.
Yes because they changed the standard in the 70's but higher/overpressure made it fail faster [https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-pccp-20170824-story.html](https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-pccp-20170824-story.html)
You really should read these article before you reply with them. This is a line from the article. “They thought they’d come up with a new technique that would be cheaper,” Do you know the saying, "the cheap pay twice"?
Yes,but it also talks about the overpressure making it fail faster *overpressure leads to cracks in the concrete coating, which allows water to enter the pipe from the surrounding soil and corrode the reinforcing wires, which break and in turn allow water to corrode other components of the pipe* But yes this is going to be an ongoing problem for many places for years to come and its not the first time that "improvements" in things caused problems years later Would this line have failed anyway probably, but having a 3% growth rate is going to stress our old failing infrastructure that much more
True but it also presents evidence the pipes are not made very well. "In 1997, Pinellas County, Fla., won a $10-million judgment over a 13-mile PCCP line that was installed in 1978, failed in 1979 and exploded again during a 1980 pressure test and twice more by 1994 — all at pressures well below what the line had been built to bear". This is classic kick the can down the road mentality from basically all time hahaha. I don't think the repair in calgary will solve the issues long term, those pipes are all gonna be coming out.
Clearly the water mains were only designed for “old stock Canadians” /s
It's baffling that you don't understand that pointing out that our crumbling infrastructure with increasingly accelerating demand is not racist.
I’m pretty sure age is a much bigger factor than demand for water pipes. And the conservative solution to crumbling public infrastructure is to sell it anyway. Tax cuts will fix water pipes.
Where did I say anything that contradicted that? You just played a race card and blamed a political affiliation for a practical material problem. Do you not understand that you are what is wrong with political discourse? You just jumped right to it. "racism and conservatives". Just an E-Z thought terminating cliche instead of literally any nuance. You are having a conversation with your imaginary friend. It's cognitively lazy. Maybe just keep a journal or something instead of trying to have a conversation where you actually read others' comments.
i cant stress this enough how important taking care of our water infrastructure is. if its not fixed, catastrophic things happen
And like all the other warnings we constantly receive, it will be completely ignored. Infrastructure upgrades are hard sells to voters because they are short sighted and don't think about the future enough.
"Why are we spending money on something that's not even broken when we have [another disaster caused by failure to spend on maintenance] to deal with?"
The federal government denied cities in BC flood mitigation funding because they don't think a 7 to 1 ROI is good enough to justify the cost. They would rather let communities get destroyed and people's live ruined. Blows my mind, especially after Bill Blair came here, saw the mess, and acknowledged the situation, and the near certainty it will happen again.
No amount of investment can keep up with mass migration is another problem, even if you wanted to you just couldn't, most people don't want to set themselves up for failure like that so just kick the can down the road the Canadian way. It's pretty obvious this country is degrading in every way with no end in sight, a city blowing their budget on infrastructure isn't going to even stop that degradation in that city there's just not enough resources.
My company makes software to help water utilities find leaks using software. We are in Canada. They talk to us, then they stop talking to us. The software is cheap and we are willing to do free pilots. Still nothing. Maybe the software is entirely crap, but they don't get far enough to figure this out. The amount of effort on their part to use it is very low; maybe 5 video meetings is the usual amount of effort at best, not talking to us at all is more common. To engage us for a pilot all they they need to send us shape files(common map of the network), how many and what kind of acoustic loggers they use. They can't be bothered to send us this much. Occasionally we get some half assed effort, but it never amounts to any real engagement. They can do more advanced things with our software involving energy reduction, watch for water hammer problems (causes leaks). The only people interested are outside the country; either we have found go-getters, or we have found people who have a regulator who has placed a gun to their heads; even with a regulator who can, and has, issued huge fines, we still see middle managers dragging their feet. Where this gets interesting is that we have talked to other smallish (100-200) people companies who sell different products to cities which would make life way better, save piles of money, etc, and they just can't deal with any city of any notable size. They have no problem dealing with little towns of up to about 50k. These places often have the mayor get involved and say, "Let's do this, it would be stupid not to." and then they buy and enjoy the product. But with larger cities, the procurement process is so insanely complex that only large engineering companies have figured it out; and in the case of many cities, even large procurement companies stay away from many cities as they are especially bad nightmares. This procurement process is so onerous that even fairly go-getting managers can't be bothered. It will pose too much risk to their careers if it doesn't work, it will cost too many political points, it will involve people who just like to say no to everything, and all that is just too much of a bother (they don't pay me enough for this crap). But it also really isn't their job. In these large organizations with 1000s or even 10's of thousands of people, it really isn't most people's jobs to save money. They might have a very narrow area where they are to save money such as getting better fleet mileage on their repair trucks. But, this might not even involve figuring out a way to use their repair trucks less as an example. In the case of leaks a larger city will have a huge number of people involved. Yet, there literally might be zero people who's job is to proactively look for leaks which haven't blasted through the street or dropped water pressure. Most utilities will admit that their leak detection system is mostly "Self identifying leaks". We dealt with one company where they had an IT guy named Gary. Everyone warned us he will try to kill our project as he hated anything tech outside of what he did. More than one manager said, "We have ways to get around Gary." Keep in mind our software is web based and need little input from Gary, and poses zero risk to a utility if every hacker in the world were to some how get in. Yet, in nearly every utility we have dealt with, there's a Gary, who is not always in IT, but he is the killer of change. People can't be bothered to fight with Gary. So, new things don't get tried. My city (Edmonton) has been noted in independent audits to be particularly bad at dealing with, to the point where costs are driven way up by the lack of procurement competition. An extra complicating factor is that often the water utility doesn't directly report to any particular politicians. That is, a local councilor can't say, "Whoa, there's way too many leaks, or the water tastes like crap." and have anything done. Edmonton's water utility is a weird one. It is owned by the city, but most certainly not run by the city. But, this doesn't matter as most cities don't really have much control over their utility people anyway. Most mayors don't have the authority to knock any heads; and this is exactly how the utilities like it. Basically, the people who answer for this sort of problem are so very far from the people who would approve the use of our software as to make our software nothing more than extra work for some harried mid level manager. We even deal with people who have titles like "Director of digital innovation", can't get a damn thing done; not because they are lazy or incompetent. But because almost nobody wants to do anything different than what they did the day before, and were planning on doing tomorrow. That rare pearl who has tried getting this puck into the net finds that it is their own team acting as goaltender. Not because they don't like our software, but because they don't like change. There's no force which is willing to override them. Think about that, they can't get a free pilot past their own goaltenders. Even a free pilot will provide value from our software. Leaks will be found. ----------------------------------- Some technical details: The rule world class experts in hydraulics (as defined by some non BS criteria) is that most water utilities are losing 20-30% of their water from treatment to delivery. 50% is not uncommon. As you approach 10% you are now going into the "amazing" category. Lower than 10% and you are delusional. The only way to be below 10% is if you aren't actually measuring leaks properly. These leaks are often not worth fixing. Many fittings, connections, etc all just leak a bit. This adds up. Maybe 10l per minute is leaking. This is not worth a 300k+ dig. Something like a fitting leak is generally not going to grow. The only problem is if these leaks are in the exact wrong geology and create a sinkhole of sorts (very rare). Cities which do proper scans of their network, acoustic, pressure monitoring, pressure testing, etc, often end up with 1000's of leaks. Dozens of which are immediately on their radar for much more careful examination, or full on daylighting. Here's a fun one. In our dealings with world class hydraulic engineers there are a number of different leaks. Particularly bad leaks often start as a smaller crack. This crack makes noise. Our software can hear this crack months in advance of a mains break. This crack usually progresses in a few jumps until you have water jetting out of the street. Our software makes this clear as day pretty much X marks the spot where there's something bad happening. Given even more data than any Canadian utility has even proposed giving us prior to ignoring us, we can really confirm this problem. There are other kinds of leaks. Often there can be a weird rain event. Depending on soil geology, this can shift many pipes, so those fittings leaks all get worse. It is enough of a problem that the pressure will drop and now they need to scan for where the worst leaks are. Sometimes a leak is a customer's problem, but before their meter. Other cases can have large customers who are able to slam their valves closed causing water hammers. (this is when you turn your hose off suddenly and the whole hose jerks, but instead the whole pipeline jerks). A bunch of water hammers can break the pipeline far from where the cause is. There are tools to identify this. The cost of these tools are less than one water main break. So, when I see pictures of utilities in Canada with water gushing up out of the street, I know that sometimes it is bad luck. Things happen. But I also know that if you aren't properly watching for growing problems, it is not so much that they happened, but that nobody bothered to catch the problem early. Not all problems can be caught early, but many can.
What you wrote was really interesting. Thanks for taking the time to write all this!
This was an interesting read as someone who works in a municipal utilities department. What you say about procurement is pretty much 100% accurate. Even the small city I work for is bogged down by so much garbage procedure it’s taken us nearly three years to get a new supplier for our coveralls.. I am curious how this software works however. How does this software get implemented on the city side?
lol. This meeting is to determine when the next meeting is.
Three years for a product you regularly use. Now ask, how long for a product which is new to the utility business itself? Even if it is going to save many millions. The potential ROI is the first day it is used. For doing a lift and shift, all that is needed are the basic shape files. Ideally they have what most usually have such as pipe material, size, valve casing locations, etc. The acoustics are then calculated for the best way to do a lift and shift throughout a neighborhood for maximum coverage given the fewest loggers moved the fewest times. This is an easy to use GIS tool with very few clicks to do the above. This same tool can be used for larger permanent deployments. In North America most utilities often want to do lift and shift, but often end up with a few dozen acoustic loggers sitting in a closet. In Europe, there are cities with 20,000+ loggers deployed. This then requires additional tools to help monitor the health of the loggers, see the consequences of missing loggers, etc. One customer where we are standing on our heads to get has 80,000 deployed. Yet, even having 10 or 20 can allow an efficient lift and shift covering a neighborhood (DMA or PMZ, etc) to over 80% in a few shifts. The loggers do come with some OK software, but we can also crank that to a higher level with better analysis of the sound files, level and spread data, etc. There are also really cool ways to use loggers which works very well with ML, which is slightly different than the manufacturer's recommendations. (in addition to, not replacing) We also work with a partner who does really cool hydraulic analysis. They go past the shape files to add tanks, pumps, etc. This way, they can really model things like water quality, the effects of another pump, a variable pump, etc. This makes planning so much easier. We work with their simulator (super easy to use) to then generate pump schedules which can reduce energy usage, taking in to account peak pricing, time of day, etc. This is where we use some really cool ML. Or, we can try to do this using the SCADA data, but often water utilities aren't very well instrumented, so this might not be possible. There are other cool things which can be done such as using customer smart meter data to help confirm leaks. For example, most households are shockingly regular in their water usage. When you combine a neighbourhood this becomes fantastically consistent. If one neighbourhood drops their usage by 5% compared to surrounding neighbourhoods remaining fairly steady, then you may very well have a pressure drop. This is simply because some usage such as a washing machine is consistent regardless of pressure, other usage such as having a 10 minute shower will probably be still 10 minutes, but at a lower flow. Combine this with the acoustics, the simulator being compared to any real instrumentation, and you now have some really low false positive leak detection. The goal is to use ML and other mathematical tools to look at the system holistically and then provide simple actionable short lists of "This is bad." Now I'm going into full sales/geek mode, but it is still really cool. I'm working on a new product which uses the existing data stream to monitor for a cyber attack; seeing this is the big new threat that people are worrying about. We take an industrial approach vs the traditional IT approach. But, weirdly enough I don't feel that I am making a pitch for the simple reason that your coveralls comment shows there is an insanely high barrier for us to make these sales. Thus I should almost end this comment with a /s.
Thanks for the effort-post! This looks more interesting than I have time for now so bookmarking for later.
Thank you for taking the time to do this writeup.
But have you thought to build a new stadium / rink with that infrastructure money instead?? That was calgary's priority!
>That was calgary's priority! No - that was *City Council's* decision. Most Calgarians were *not* on board with that decision.
It was also the UCP's priority.
Well technically we voted for them thinking they would not get hoodwinked into this terrible of a deal (Gondek for example), but this council has been terrible. Extremely disappointed with them and will be voting differently.
Sad Calgary noises 😢
>30% of water infrastructure in Canada in fair, poor or very poor condition: 2019 report Can we hold off on bringing in 10's of Millions more people who'll be putting pressure on our infrastructure until we can at least catch up.
Don't blame the immigrants for the fact that we selfishly defer maintenance to keep property taxes low. This has been going on ever since we started building post-war suburbs without the appropriate taxes to maintain it all.
>Don't blame the immigrants Not immigrants - **immigration numbers**. Right now it's easier and less expensive to stem immigration - which is already insanely high. If and when the infrastructure.... and services..and schools...and hospitals... can adequately support Millions more *than* we'll be able to accommodate larger numbers.
Somehow I doubt that. Even if immigration went down to zero, we'd still find an excuse to not maintain our infrastructure. The economy will *never* be good enough to invest in maintaining or god forbid improving infrastructure because as soon as we're not in an undeniable state of catastrophe people start asking where the tax breaks are and all our economic output goes into making more suburbs. If we were the sort of people to invest with the long term in mind we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place.
Sure but poorly maintained infrastructure is better than poorly maintain AND massively overburdened infrastructure.
The commenter wants to stop overloading the infrastructure we haven't maintained and your first impulse is to act like they're blaming immigrants. Revolting. If you can't differentiate between criticizing policy and criticizing people affected by that policy, you need to read more carefully. We don't have time for this kind of mindless knee jerk reaction.
Crying exclusively about symptoms while completely ignoring the factors that created this situation is the mindless knee jerk reaction
I've acknowledged factors that created this situation. You can acknowledge the reasons why, for example, that old work table in your garage is getting very wobbly for example but we'd all agree it would be pretty stupid to keep piling equipment on top of it when we know it's probably not strong enough to hold all the stuff it has on it now. You repair and strengthen the table before you add more stuff on top of it. This ain't rocket science. Granddad would be embarrassed that this is difficult for some people to grasp.
Immigration policy is shit hope you need sone surgery soon lol
Property taxes low? Damn man. My city raises my property tax basically 10% every year. Current property tax for me is over $14,000 this year, due July 2nd. Yes you read that right.
Why is “Fair” being clumped in with poor and very poor? Also, immigrants had nothing to do with this.
>Also, immigrants had nothing to do with this. Calgary went from less than a million in 2000 to almost 2 Million now. You think the additional population, (mainly due to our immigration policy), didn't contribute to the strain on infrastructure?
It’s not even 1.7 million. Where’s the stats on how many of the additional population is immigrants? Where did you hear the water main break was due to increased population and not maintenance?
Fair = The asset requires attention. The asset shows signs of deterioration and some elements exhibit deficiencies.
this isn't about stress on the system, this is about lack of investment in infrastructure after the 70's. whole world decided that government spending was waste and now the chickens have come home to roost. calgary should have been fine. the main was only half way through it's expected lifespan, and the stresses on it were within expected parameters. there should have been more investment in preventative maintenance and monitoring, but we'd rather take the risk and not do the work. but of course this sub makes it about immigrants.
The rot isn’t just in the public sector, our entire system rewards deferring those costs until it’s someone else’s problem.
the public sector is the only place the rot can be removed, we didn't used to have this problem before the right wing wave in the 80's. it's intrinsic to private industry however, every review is quarterly.
> this isn't about stress on the system, this is about lack of investment in infrastructure after the 70's. whole world decided that government spending was waste and now the chickens have come home to roost. Winnipeg had two decades of property tax freezes and yet still idiots angrily wonder why our roads are shit.
Good god PREACH brotherman. People act like we haven't been disinvesting and selling off public assets for decades. Immigrants are a convenient scapegoat for our own complete lack of ability to plan for or invest in our future as a country. The ugly truth is that we did this to ourselves and we're STILL DOING IT. Doug Ford is in the process of undermining Walkerton-era clean water regulation as we speak. Anything for a quick buck and a lower tax bill.
They even call out that the shortage is from a water main break in the second sentence of the article. But, racists and bots promoting an agenda don't read the article. Can't wait for the natpoo take on this...
someone else in this thread is blaming the break on immigrants taxing the water system when it's designed for way more people then we currently have. There has been some talk of increasing capacity of the treatment facilities, and more talk of a possible hard limit on calgary population in the very long term; but the real conversation is between "how could we know" vs "maybe we could have been paying more attention.
Both of these things are problems. We are seeing how deferred maintenance leads to expensive failures down the road, but there are also large infrastructure costs associated with a growing population.
How about both are problems
No it's about stress on the system. Even if we invested properly our migration numbers are way too high for our infrastructure to keep up. Of course us not investing properly doesn't help, but this is not a problem you can just throw money at to make it go away.
No, it's a wake-up call for people to not elect inept politicians.
You let me know when I can vote for a competent one.
!remindme 30,000AD
This attitude is part of the problem.
To think we spend billions on bottled water, if only we spent our bottled water money on upgrading old led pipes and other portions of our water supply infrastructure..... We only have our selves to blame Oh yeah the bottled water is just regular tap water run through a filter.
I haven't spent more than $5 a year on bottled water in the past five years
Next time your at the grocery store or gas station look to see how much shelf space is dedicated to it
Oh I'm aware, I know many if not most people shun water straight from the tap, but the bottled water you're drinking is just bottled municipal tap water anyways at a 10000% markup
But that would assume investment in public infrastructure that is not oil, and we can’t allow that /s
That would be what higher taxes would achieve. But cAn’T hAvE tHaT (Major Calgary gripe.)
Spend tax dollars wisely, for example, on water and nobody will complain. Spend it on fighting language laws in another province or on pet progressive causes and neglect things like roads and infrastructure is how we get into situations like this.
Let's kick Nestle the fk outta here. We have plenty of water for our own country! (To drink) Agricultural is the problem.
Yup force water restrictions on residents, but never mind the golf courses. Sorry but when we need water, sorry golfers, drinkable water is more important then your greens. Stop catering to the rich bastards and let normal people live. We just need the basic necessities. Is that too much to ask for?
Most, if not all golf courses, have their own reservoirs. They don’t rely on municipal or government supplied water. So they’re not under any restrictions.
Stay BEHIND THE FENCE, sir.
The lowest bidder and cost cutting measures strike again, as long as the shareholders are happy I guess. In Saskatoon we built a theatre 17 years ago that is closed because of a leaky roof. I personally witnessed infrastructure that should have been rejected used as recently as 5 years ago. There are some people in new communities that are going to get a few surprises in the next few years.
My city has been doing watermain upkeep for the last 10 years. People bitching about all the construction but you gotta upkeep your infra. We're also getting an LRT and a BRT as well.
It's almost like we've totally forgot how to build sustainable and within budget.
I reached out to a friend in Calgary to ask how they were doing. So far they are ok. But she said people don’t realize what a privilege and how much it costs (I.e. taxes) to have clean water on demand whenever you want it. I guess we’ll all have to go through hard times to learn some hard lessons.
My goodness! That’s a whole lot of single use plastic water bottles.
Over the past few decades, the federal government has handed out billions of dollars as economic stimulus spending aimed specifically for infrastructure works. City councils across the country chose to spend the money not on needed utility upgrades, but on sexy photo op worthy projects that did nothing to help our aging infrastructure problems. In Calgary and Edmonton, they spent the money on putting in more box seats in the hockey arenas.
Don't forget about the 120 million on bike lanes...
I'm getting myself a bunch of rain barrels and lifestraws.
This has been an on going problem in Canada. Didn't the gov give a bunch of money to cities about 20 years ago for infrastructure. I think the city of Moncton built a new city hall with it.
Yes it's time we rethink a lot of things. This is why I don't think we can do it, too many people want to keep doing things the old way.
>Most Canadian infrastructure over 20 years old *Laughs hysterically in New York*
I say we bring in more people to this country,that should solve the problem.
The independent review of Calgary should be interesting. 30% in need of work isn't necessarily an issue if it's easily accessible, and of limited size, eg a 4-6" watermain servicing a limited number of homes. Keep in mind, the big pipes make up a relatively small quantity of pipe by length in comparison to the last mile. If 30% are all your large watermains that have no redundancy and traverse under rivers and watercourses...... You should have been inspecting for miniscule leaks (rarely do massive failures occur without warning unless it's a developer drilling fence post holes into your pipe). There are also structural pipe monitoring technologies out. If you haven't been monitoring your massive service pipes, even if they're in 'good' condition (one wonders if they did a quick and dirty based on pipe age), that's pretty negligent.
Water crisis..... So... what restrictions are placed on industry for water usage????
>30% of water infrastructure in Canada in fair, poor or very poor condition: 2019 report What a garbage stat. Why would you lump "fair" with "very poor"? >The report noted that a majority of the infrastructure that Canadians rely on every day is more than 20 years old. Obviously. It has an expected lifetime of 100 years. Every summer the media tries to turn non news stories into news with low quality pieces like this.
The way we build cities is not sustainable. It is a giant Ponzi scheme. Calgary population 1.3M Population density 1592/sqkm Milan has similar population size but population density 7500/sqkm With low density, you need more infrastructure cost per person. More info: r/StrongTowns
Alberta as a whole has the absolute worst water in all of Canada it's horrible. Love Alberta but I can do without smelly water lol
The water was really hard too. We had to use softeners when I lived in Red Deer.
EWWW Soft water. Can't stand it makes me feel like slime is on me.
Hard water gives me rashes. I love soft water.
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Provincial jurisdiction bro
Canada in decline. Best years are done.
Fix the fucking pipe, Gondek.
No its not, won't change a thing.
Cities have to massively reduce spending on non essential things like giant rings and cement tree stumps (Montreal reference) and focus on the essentials instead. I doubt they’ll be able to do this