‘It’s not going to be pleasant’: Bowness residents brace for disruption from water-main work

Once again, Bowness residents are bearing the brunt of water-main construction.

Residents in Bowness say they’re preparing for months of disruption as construction begins on the Bearspaw South feeder main.

The project will see a two-kilometre section of 34th Avenue N.W. between 87 and 73 streets dug up using a cut-and-cover approach, rather than micro-tunnelling.

Work is expected to begin in May and continue through to October.

Kelly de Groot, whose home sits directly along the construction route, said he understands the need for the project, even though it will be disruptive.

“It’s not going to be pleasant,” de Groot said.

“It’ll be noisy, it’ll be dusty, but I mean, it’s a necessary evil if people want water, so they’ve got to put it somewhere.

“Just happens to be in front of my house.”

De Groot said preliminary work has already taken place on his street.

“They spent four, about four days marking all the utility lines, sewer lines, all those ones that they have to do before they dig,” he said.

Shannon Baker, who also lives in Bowness, said the scale of construction is concerning, particularly with multiple infrastructure projects already underway in the area.

“It’s a little disconcerting,” Baker said.

“It’s going to be disturbing and disruptive.”

Howard Pearce moved on to 34th Avenue six months ago.

He said while residents are expecting significant disruption, he thinks the work is overdue.

“It is going to be a little bit hectic here,” Pearce said.

“But we’ve had how many water mains burst lately? It seems like a recurring thing. So better late than never.”

Pearce said some residents feel their neighbourhood is bearing the brunt of the project.

Traffic congestion is another concern raised by residents, including Kelly Gillespie.

“The traffic through Bowness is atrocious, and the city doesn’t do much about it,” Gillespie said.

She said road closures could push vehicles onto residential streets and make parking more difficult.

“We’ll all have to choose the side street, but you also don’t want to annoy the neighbours on the next street over if I have to park there,” she said.

While speaking with CTV, Ward 1 Coun. Kim Tyers didn’t mince words, saying it was going to be a difficult period for Bowness residents living along and near the road.

“There’s going to be disruptions to water, to utilities, parking (and) regular, average, everyday life,” Tyers said.

“Getting from point A to point B is going to be quite difficult.”

Tyers said the city plans to open a customer service office in the Bowness Community Association building before construction begins.

“There’s going to be representatives there from the city that are going to be mitigating any problems that come up,” she said.

Mayor Jeromy Farkas said the city is attempting to complete the feeder-main replacement in a much shorter timeframe than most civic projects.

“This feeder-main replacement project would typically take four years, and we’ve set a very ambitious goal of delivering in one single year,” Farkas said.

“We would have preferred to be able to tunnel the whole section, but unfortunately, because of the time crunch that we’re under, there just isn’t enough labour construction capacity here locally in the Calgary market.”

Farkas said council previously allocated about $200 million for the project, but costs are expected to exceed that amount.

“My understanding is council and the public are going to have an update very soon on this,” he said.

“We are certainly over that $200 million at this point, and we’re going to be as transparent as possible with Calgarians about what the cost may be, as well as what the potential rate impacts may be.”