Its time that our City started to look where all the water is going or will they just increase our utility bill to cover up for bad infrastructure. Maybe Enbridge installed the water mains in the City?
Cheers

The problem as I see it is an incomplete engineering cycle. They gloss over the first phase,and completely neglect the final phase of any project.

The five basic phases are:
Planning
Analysis
Design
Implementation
Maintenance

One of the steps in the final phase is to prepare for planning, so it is a cyclical process.

These projects are presumably engineered, which means they know the life expectancy of that project and the MTBF (mean time before failure) on the components. What they are failing to do is account for how that infrastructure will be maintained during its service life and replaced in 30 or 50 years. What, do they expect the city to evaporate?

Not a good time to have a heart attack in that area. Amazing!!!!

Thank goodness it wasn't a gas line that blew, like the one in San Bruno, Ca, which happened last week!

So, Loki, how do you maintain a water system 10 feet in the ground. Do they dig it out every year and see if it is OK????

Words are easy to implement, if one has no idea what the impact is.

There are now devices that will physically enter and crawl through pipes for inspection. They are called pipe inspection robots.

They are also able to use various non intrusive methods similar to radar to "see" the condition of the pipes, the water saturation of the surrounding media, and soil density. There are all kinds gizmos for this as they are very aware that end of service life planning is not done.

Be that as it may, my point is that this is not planned. They wait for a failure.

As a home owner, don't you plan to replace the roof in 10 or 25 years depending on the manufacturers specifications? Even the plumbing in your house needs to be replaced periodical. Don't you plan to rotate and replace the tires on your car every few years?

It is the same thing, only on a larger scale with professionals who are supposed to know this. It is not the professional only at fault, it is the ones that can say yes that are failing to plan a full cycle.

Loki

Sewer lines, are not pressurized thus one can do these inspection through a manhole. However there are no manhole access for water lines. So how do you plan to enter these lines, all the way back from the pumping station and shut down the entire city water systems or dig up the street every 10 years to test out a section.

Like I mentioned before, words are easy to implement.

The city approach of dealing with breakage is a reasonable. if there is a lot of breakage in one area, than dig it all out and go with the option of HDPE instead of Cement Asbestos lines. Or go with the trenchless liner method.

Yes, I actually support the reasoning that the city has on water mains. The older sections of town will likely be in need of major repairs. downtown, crescents, Miller, and central. They will likely look at the trench less method.

Glad to see your civil engineering degree has not gone to waste. You obviously know more about this sort of thing than I.

My comments and ideas are a product of watching too many videos or programs regarding various technologies seen through the eyes of a systems person. But hey, I am just a dumb a$$ with a big mouth like many others.

Loki, its people like you and me, that keeps our city on their toes. Because, it is a different world than it was 40 years ago, where the average person believed what the authorities told them.

With the internet, and the Discovery channels, it places them on the level of accountability.

my only question is my taxes were 3600 last year with a 4 percent hike, how come it came in at 4200.

I'm not a civil engineer. just another Dumb@$$.

A friend of mine started a business that does underground radar imaging of things like this. He's based in Kelowna now and does work like this for the municipalities down there all the time. It is possible to know exactly what condition the pipes are in without a robot and without having to dig up the ground at all.

So is the same place it broke there only a few years ago. 2 breaks in a short period in the same area? I wonder when the wizards at the city will put that together and maybe look into the real issue for the problem.

My thoughts on how Loki's 5 steps are done at the city and how it results in the infrastructure we see and pay for are as follows:

Planning - A step completed by City staff with little more thought beyond getting the correct papers together to publish with their inept purchasing department such that it frees up their afternoon for coffee drinking at the soonest possible time, and advertises that they want a new cadillac for the price they paid for their first beat up 10 yr old gremlin.

Analysis: A step partially completed by City staff and Pusrchasing department, alrgely targeted at revising the first step after somebody points out that they will only get a 10 yr old gremlin for what they are willing to pay for.

Design: Poorly done by a consortium of local consulting companies that likely have close connections to the city staff and sometimes not even for the lowest price. Lowest standards are the usual basis for award of work in this phase.

Implementation - or commonly known as the "blind eye" phase of project completeion in the city. This is where the standards and quality drop even further(note the continued downward spiral from step continues).

Maintenance - this is when the care and feeding of the project comes fully back into the hands of the city after being handled the entire way by the lowest quality bidder and all the defects, oversight, and poor workmanship are all built right in. Layer on council's inability to appropriately fund infrastructure maintenance due to a lack of funding resulting from buying old properties in an insane dream to attract people to the desolate, serviceless downtown area and voila.. watermain breaks, low quality roads, failed bingo centres, an empty airplane refuelling pad and a road to it through their buddies properties,