Calgary lost 23% of its treated water last year to leaks. What’s the plan to fix it?

Nearly a quarter of treated water travelling through pipes below Calgary streets was lost last year due to leaks in the city’s distribution network.

According to an update to the city’s Infrastructure and Planning Committee Tuesday, it’s estimated that 23 per cent of the city’s treated water was lost last year, with water loss has ranging between 20 per cent and 24 per cent between 2019 and 2025.

The City of Calgary determines water loss through the the difference between how much water is treated, and how much is billed through customer meters. However, the estimates’ accuracy is dependent on how well the city can “measure, detect and confirm what’s happening throughout the entire system.”

Ryan Kidd, the city’s deputy director of drinking water, said finding leaks can be challenging.

“A lot of Calgary’s soil is gravelly and porous, so some of those leaks don’t come to surface,” he said. “We have to actively go out and look and listen for those. It can be a pretty significant activity.”

Water loss can be caused by leaks across the city’s distribution network including aging pipes, hydrant leaks, broken valves and as leaks from service lines and joints.

Ward 4 Coun. DJ Kelly said the leakage situation should be treated “as an emergency situation.”

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“The reason that number is so high is because we’ve been chronically underinvesting in our water infrastructure… for 15-plus years,” he told reporters.

However, some experts aren’t surprised by the amount of water lost due to the size of Calgary’s water network, which includes more than 5,500 km of pipes and 345,000 service connections.

“Certainly it’s higher than we’d like it to be but people need to keep in mind there tends to be quite a lot of leakage from our water pipes across Canada,” said Kerry Black, a civil engineering professor at the University of Calgary.

“You’ll tend to see 10, 15, 20 per cent depending on the municipality across Canada.”

According to city administration, recent system challenges like the failures along the Bearspaw feeder main “reinforce the need to reduce water loss and strengthen system resilience.”

City administration’s plan, entitled the Accelerated Water Loss Program, aims to reduce water loss in Calgary to 15 per cent by 2030.

The plan includes improved measurement through advanced metering infrastructure and increased system monitoring, as well as expanded leak detection and repair, and increased renewal and preventative maintenance to prevent future leaks.

The goal is to replace 10 km of water main pipe in 2026. That’s up from 7.8 km in 2025, and 3.2 km in 2024.

According to the city’s report, the goal increases to 15 km annually starting in 2027.

“We are certainly committed to increasing our surveying rate and finding and fixing leaks,” Kidd said.

However, city administration noted finding and fixing water loss “takes time, effort and investment,” which is pegged at $342 million in the upcoming four-year budget — double the $168 million allocated in the previous budget.

Ward 10 Coun. Andre Chabot, who chairs the committee, said council should be looking at “spending more.”

According to Chabot, the price tag to reduce water leaks is “cost avoidance” of having to build a new water treatment plant to create more capacity in the system.

“It’s a lot cheaper for us to reduce our water loss than to build a new water treatment plant,” he said. “For me, it’s a small investment in something that’s going to have a long-term benefit.”

But with hundreds of millions of dollars in new spending already recommended for the upcoming budget, the situation has frustrated some councillors.

“I’m a bit frustrated as a new city councillor,” Ward 9 Coun. Harrison Clark said. “We’re dealing with a lack of investment on a number of fronts and if we just bite the bullet and pay the full cost now, we can catch up somehow. It’s going to be an interesting budget cycle.”

Council will decide on whether to fully fund the program during budget talks in November.