CANMORE – Crews working on a water utility project in Canmore struck and damaged a water main on Friday morning (Oct. 26).
Town of Canmore communications manager Robyn Dinnadge said crews were working on a project to establish a new lift station to supply drinking water to the community when they ruptured the main water line, causing it to spray into the air until it was shut off.
"They have isolated the break and are working on fixing it," Dinnadge said. "We are unsure of timelines, however everyone in town should have water service."
EPCOR is on site, she added, and there may be reduced water pressure on the north side of the valley and some areas of downtown. The water main break occurred near the public pathway that runs between Spring Creek Mountain Village and Railway Avenue/Elevation place and nobody was hurt in the incident
"There is quite a lot of water on site and none went into Policeman's Creek," Dinnadge said.
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The water utility project itself is to replace lift station two – one of two sources of Canmore's drinking water. The design for the project was completed in 2017 at a cost of $210,000 and the construction this year is estimated at $1.66 million.
The purpose of the project is to upgrade the lift station to a fully enclosed facility with a new wet well, pumps and controls to address capacity issues. According to the project summary for the capital project, analysis of pumping hours at the lift station in 2015 found the pumps ran 25 hours per day or 104 per cent capacity indicating the second pump was running on a regular basis to keep up with demand.
