High River residents confront RCMP.
Threat closes water-treatment plant for much of Thursday
CALGA RY — Mayor Naheed Nenshi assured Calgarians on Thursday the city’s drinking water is safe following a train derailment that forced the evacuation and temporary closure of the Bonnybrook waste water treatment plant.
Nenshi said he’s “not happy” the city had to close the facility, because it allowed untreated water into the Bow River for much of Thursday — but he stressed Calgary’s drinking water comes from upstream of the waste-water plant.
“The grates are up,” Nenshi said Thursday morning.
“The water is flowing directly through that plant. If we were concerned before about not meeting federal standards, well, we’re certainly not meeting them now.”
The closure at the Bonnybook plant was prompted by the buckling of a Canadian Pacific rail bridge spanning the Bow River adjacent to the facility. Five tanker cars carrying flammable fluids were in danger of falling into the river until firefighters and rail crews were able to stabilize them with cables.
Although Calgary’s drinking water wasn’t affected by the incident, Nenshi said communities downstream have been informed untreated sewage flowed their way for much of the day Thursday as firefighters and rail crews rendered the derailment scene safe.
Nenshi also stressed that City of Calgary bridges are safe. Every bridge has been inspected three times since the flood crisis began last Thursday, he said.
“Our bridges are all constructed in a different way, they are built eight feet (2.4 metres) into the bedrock,” Nenshi said.
“Bonnybrook (bridge) was not built into the bedrock, which we just learned today. We continually remediate and reinforce our bridges. Centre Street bridge is 100 years old and is strong, stable and safe, and made it through this situation very, very well because of the continual work that we do.”
Thursday morning’s briefing was supposed to be mostly “good news,” before the train derailment put the city in another crisis mode.
But there was some good news Thursday for commuters and those without electricity.
Director of roads Ryan Jestin said the 25th Avenue S.W. bridge over the Elbow River may be open by Friday morning.
“Which is phenomenal in less than a week,” he said.
As of Thursday afternoon, roughly 3,100 customers remained without power.
Enmax has 200 people on the ground and 100 in-office support workers to restore power all day Thursday, CEO Gianna Manes said, but stressed it’s a complex process.
By late afternoon, Nenshi was reporting that power should be restored for all of Cliff Bungalow and Mission at some point Thursday night — but it will take additional inspections or assessments before individual properties are able to turn the electricity back on.
The East Village “could be a while yet,” he added.
Manes said crews were working from “driest to wettest, north to south” and that more systems would be restored throughout the day.
As of Thursday afternoon, east downtown and the East Village were areas where Enmax was still working to restore power. There are 466 customers in the area, including large hotels, businesses and apartments.
A number of Enmax transformers in underground concrete vaults have suffered damage. City inspectors were working with crews to try to repair the equipment during the day.
“We are hopeful that sometime into Saturday, we will be able to restore all or parts of this part of the city, but there’s a lot of uncertainty.”