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Calgary’s Water Emergency

The catastrophic failure of one of Calgary’s main water transmission lines has been extensively covered in the news – both nationally and internationally. One US location worth mentioning is San Diego. Their water department shipped two sections of very large pipe to Calgary to aid with the repair process. And believe me, we appreciate their support and cooperation. For those who’ve not heard anything about Calgary’s water emergency, this article provides a pretty good overview.

The failure occurred the afternoon of June 5. The immediate neighborhood was put on a boil water order and the rest of Calgary’s 1.6 million residents were put into Stage 4 water restrictions (absolutely no outdoor watering with processed water) and asked to curtail their indoor water use as much as possible. On June 15th, after inspections detected another 5 pipe sections that needed replacement, repair or rehabilitation, the Mayor declared a state of emergency. The state of emergency is ongoing while I’m writing this post. The latest estimate is that repairs will be completed by July 5th – the start of the 2024 Calgary Stampede.

Stage 4 water restrictions have wide repercussions for Calgary and area’s nearby nature. Any new plantings are at risk of failure. I’ve read of one woman using purchased bottled water on her newly-installed sod. I usually keep shallow dishes of water in my flower beds for bees, but have held off on this until watering restrictions are lifted. Bird baths are similarly affected (we don’t have one; I’m not sure about bird baths and bird feeders in this age of H5N1). It seems to me that some perennials are late in blooming, further impacting pollinators.

One positive? I have a new awareness of just how much water we waste as it goes down the drain. By placing a bucket in the kitchen sink, we collect several gallons/day from washing things – hands, fruit and vegetables, in particular. Many people are saving their dish washing water to use in their gardens. We have a bucket in the shower to catch the flow when the water’s warming up. When it rained the second weekend of the water restrictions, I was out there in my rain gear with buckets under the downspouts, collecting about 35 gallons of rain water.

All of this saved and collected water goes to watering select plants and areas in the yard: for me, it’s the fruit trees, the rows of vegetables, a few new plantings from last fall, and a pot full of herbs. I get a lot more steps and some light strength training hauling buckets and watering cans around, 😉

Calgarians have really come together to stay under the daily threshold of volume that can be processed by the one operating water treatment plant. Yes, there are some exceptions – some tickets have been issued for violating the watering restrictions and the fire ban.

We had someone knock on the door the other day soliciting window washing business. We were on board until they showed up with hoses to connect to our supply and couldn’t provide a business license/water use permit, at which point we asked them to come back in July. Our vehicle has a lot of dead bugs stuck to it. We plan our every-three-days shower around sweat-inducing activities. 😉

These things are all tolerable in the short term. The more interesting questions, I think, include:

• How is the city going to manage the rush to water lawns once the main transmission line is back in service?
• Is this a foreshadowing of future and protracted droughts? What can we learn from what does / doesn’t do well in our yard to “future proof” it? Should we investigate getting a rain barrel or two?
• How long will we keep up our water saving measures? I foresee keeping buckets in the kitchen sink and shower until winter comes around. The challenge will be remembering to reinstate these practices next spring.
• What kind of reduction are we going to see in our water bill? From routine tracking, I know the three members of our household already use about 30% less than Calgary’s per capita water usage. How much lower will we go – both for the emergency period and afterwards?

What’s the water situation like in your part of the world?

Canada’s 2030 Nature Strategy and Accountability Bill

Back in 2022, I supported Nature Canada’s NatureBUS campaign. And I covered the COP-15 Adoption of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework in my January 2023 Nearby Nature Project blog post.So it’s great to see the natural next step in the long process of nurturing biodiversity. On June 13, 2024, Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault released Canada’s 2030 Nature Strategy: Halting and Reversing Biodiversity Loss in Canada. Concurrently, he announced the Nature Accountability Bill—the legal framework needed to support implementation of the Strategy. As with many federal Liberal initiatives, this one is fairly lacking in specific timelines, measures of progress and funding commitments. Funding is always a challenge in this era of huge budget deficits, but it’s good to see some (theoretical?) progress. For a more detailed analysis of what’s in the documents and possible next steps, check out this article from Nature Canada.

Rewilding

Speaking of halting and reversing biodiversity loss, we learned a fair bit about UK rewinding during our recent trip to Scotland. As with most things, its got its proponents and its opponents. We witnessed firsthand the damage to forests due to the unchecked deer population (the apex wolf predator was extirpated some 700 years ago). Hence the popularity of venison on restaurant menus. We observed peat bog restoration efforts in a few areas. We also saw a few farm fields planted using regenerative techniques. So I was primed to read this article about “re-farming” (as opposed to rewilding) when it hit my newsfeeds.

Another Reason to Find Joy in Birdwatching

A recent study, reported on here, confirms that birdwatching and beekeeping help support mental wellness and foster a sense of wellbeing.

Gardening, Nature’s Sleeping Pill?

People who spend more time gardening tend to have fewer sleep problems

Cultivating My Nature Connection

I haven’t yet finished reading A New Garden Ethic: Cultivating Defiant Compassion for an Uncertain Future by Benjamin Vogt. Stay tuned for my review / takeaways next month.

My Nearby Nature Projects

Birding

The last few weeks have been a little challenging on the birding front. Trees and shrubs have leafed out, making it much more difficult to spot songbirds. And Vermilion Lakes water level is high, so the water birds are able to go deep into the grasses while they wait for their eggs to hatch. Sightings have been somewhat scarce. But we did kayak twice and saw Ospreys both times. And Yellow Warblers. And a lifer for us – a pair of Wilson’s Phalaropes.

Immature and breeding plumages have made identification challenging in a few cases (for example, immature male Common Goldeneye and a couple of Hooded Mergansers.

We have been grateful for our long lenses, which allow for well-distanced observations of Common Loon and Red-necked Grebe nests.

Other Wildlife

We’ve seen a lot of deer while cycling this month, and more bears than usual. The snow pack is lingering at higher elevations, which is keeping the bears in the valley bottoms where there are plenty of dandelions to browse. Mostly we’ve seen black bears, along the section of the Bow Valley Parkway closed to motorized vehicles between May 1 and June 25.

One ride, we had the opportunity to converse with Parks Canada staff who were hazing a black bear to move it away from the highway (they were using chalk pellets). That conversation really deepened our appreciation for how difficult it is to meet the Parks’ conservation mandate with all the people on the landscape. And it made us realize that a downside to closing motorized vehicle access for 3 months of the year on a stretch of the Bow Valley Parkway can actually acclimate bears to the presence of people, and make them more comfortable around people. It’s a complex challenge.

We’ve also seen Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep a few times.

Wildflower Appreciation

Yes, the wildflowers are blooming. We traveled most of May, so I saw only a few before we left. I look forward to checking some of my favorite spots for wild orchids over the next several weeks. Meanwhile, here is a collage of some of the blooms I’ve seen while we’ve been out walking or cycling.

Nature-Friendly Gardening

I went into detail earlier in this post about the challenges of keeping the garden going with Stage 4 water restrictions in effect. So far, I’ve had a couple of small picks of rhubarb and kale (a little bitter). I really hope the water supply comes back closer to normal so that the carrots do well and the perennials flower soon. There are some bees around, especially at the raspberry canes. But the more flowers the better for the pollinators.

Coming Up

The Canadian Wildlife Federation is running a photo contest from June 1 through October 31st, for residents of Canada. It’s meant to boost participation in iNaturalist’s Big Biodiveristy Quest. Read all the details here.