Members of Calgary city council are responding after an independent review of Calgary’s water system was released publicly Wednesday.
Council voting unanimously Wednesday evening to direct administration to provide recommendations on an implementation plan following the independent review into the 2024 Bearspaw South Feeder main failure.
It comes as Mayor Jeromy Farkas pledges to spare no expense to prevent another break from happening again.
“We have to action all of these recommendations, we cannot cherry-pick, we cannot choose,” he said.
But, he’ll need the support of his council colleagues, some of which have expressed concern with some of the recommendations in the report.
Coun. Jennifer Wyness is questioning the need for the city to follow through with the recommendation to create a dedicated water utility department led by a chief operating officer.
“I would rather hire frontline people doing the work that we know needs to be done so that this doesn’t happen again,” she said. “We know the reports are getting written, that’s the other piece. The reports were written, so it’s not necessarily the higher up the food chain that needs to be staffed.”
While the review doesn’t place the sole blame for the city’s water woes on a single individual or council, some councillors say the review shows it’s time for a course correct within administration.
“Culture at city hall is to blame, where they were underestimating risks, where they weren’t providing updated reports, they were not reacting to timely information that should have been acted on,” said Coun. Dan McLean.
The recommendations on an implementation plan is now set to go to executive committee in February.