The spectre of Calgary’s infamous 2024 water main break was invoked by City of Greater Sudbury staff during a recent meeting with city council members.
Promoting the importance of constructing a new water main, city Water/Wastewater Treatment and Compliance director Shawn Chretien said, “in one word, Calgary.”
On June 5, 2024, a water main break in Calgary left thousands of Calgarians without any water, while many more experienced low water pressure.
The Calgary water main was built in 1975, and is roughly the same age as a water main in Greater Sudbury which stretches from the Wanapitei Water Treatment Plant approximately 13 kilometres west to the Ellis Reservoir in Sudbury’s Minnow Lake neighbourhood.
(The reservoir is an underground tank on a hill which replaced the water tower system in the ’90s.)
Having this lone pipe in operation leaves area water users "vulnerable,” Chretien said.
City auditor general reiterated this point in flagging the water main as “an aging trunk,” while also clarifying that it had recently been found to be in good condition.
Sudbury.com reached out to city communications staff for more context regarding the water main in question, and what basis there was for the Calgary analogy shared last month.
City Water and Wastewater projects engineer Akli Ben-Anteur said the water main running from the Wanapitei Water Treatment Plant to the Ellis Reservoir is almost 50 years old.
“It’s something we take care of and consider extremely important to our water supply,” he said, adding that its condition is assessed regularly.
“We have just completed a more recent assessment that didn’t show any major concerns so far, but it’s worth noting that it’s aging infrastructure and we need to think about safety of water supply and redundancy to make sure that we are planning for the current and future needs as well.”
Although the city also draws water from the David Street Water Treatment Plant and the Ellis Reservoir, these contingencies only buy users approximately 72 hours of potable water in the event the Wanapitei water main were to break.
A Wanapitei water main break would affect people throughout Coniston, Garson and Sudbury.
“As the infrastructure is getting older and aging, we need to think about redundancy, we need to think about safety,” Ben-Anteur said.
“The population is growing, there’s more demand from businesses and industries, so we need to rely and supply that and be confident that we can supply reliable water.”
The city is currently undertaking an environmental assessment to get rolling on a proposed project to twin the water main. It’s been in the books for several years, but is currently without the approximately $75 million in funding it would require.
The city’s 2024-25 budget flags the project as one which “will likely exceed the funding provided through normal annual rate increases” and will "require additional debt financing.”
The City of Greater Sudbury’s debt load is currently $341 million, with another $259.4 million approved by city council but yet to be secured. This does not include the Wanapitei project.
Additional context is provided in the city’s Water/Wastewater Master Plan, which Ben-Anteur said is currently being updated.
The Wanapitei Water Treatment Plant and David Street Water Treatment Plant feed into the Ellis Reservoir, which is typically filled to a maximum useful volume of 26,700 m3.
Loss of either treatment plant “signifies a substantial drop in capacity, and inability of the system to meet current demands.”
Although the project was only brought up in passing within council chambers last month, it’s anticipated that the topic of twinning the Wanapitei water main will re-emerge as a key point of discussion during future budget deliberations.
Whatever water main work the city ends up proceeding with will be paid for via water/wastewater rates, or whatever funding the city secures from senior levels of government. Under their current plan, rates are slated to increase by 4.8 per cent in 2026 and gradually increase until hitting six per cent by 2031.
Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.