The foundation has been laid for the creation of a new Water Utility Oversight Board (WUOB) in Calgary, after city council’s executive committee voted to send city administration’s plan to implement recommendations from the Bearspaw South Feedermain (BPSFM) Independent Review Panel.
The panel was organized to investigate the June 2024 rupture of the water main, and its report landed in the city’s administration offices in December, just prior to the second major break of the feedermain on Dec. 30.
The report did not hold back on placing the blame for the 2024 break (and hence, the 2025 break) pointing directly at the City of Calgary and its lack of efficient management of its infrastructure assets.
“The City’s Water Utility processes were not sufficiently robust to manage a complex system of this nature, especially one with challenging external pressures,” says the report.
“The BPSFM, which carries approximately 60% of Calgary’s potable water, was repeatedly recognized as a high consequence risk but deprioritized due to its perceived low likelihood of failure, which caused resources to be directed to other priorities.”
Recommendations made in 2017, 2020, and 2022 to inspect the assets were deferred, and traditional planning safeguards required for critical infrastructure were ignored.
"The last Asset Management Plan was issued in 2017, with limited follow-up and no Integrated Resource Plan exists, leaving the system without coordinated, long-term renewal and redundancy planning,” says the report.
“These process gaps persisted over two decades within an environment of unclear accountability and a culture of risk tolerance and decision deferral. These gaps exist within today’s organization structure, wherein the Water Utility is split across multiple city departments leaving no single leader accountable for end-to-end outcomes.”
The report singled out Calgary CAO David Duckworth as “the first person with full visibility across the Water Utility, who also oversees more than 60 other portfolios. In the absence of a single accountable executive, decisions were often delayed or deprioritized, compounded by a consensus driven culture that normalized deferral of action on critical issues.”
“Despite its large scale 2026 capital budget of $1.1 billion and operating budget of $380 million and council’s mandate to be self-funded entirely through user rates and levies, the Water Utility operates without segmented financial statements resulting in limited line of sight to the Water Utility’s true financial performance and restricts the ability to directly link revenues and expenditures to service outcomes, ultimately contributing to a lack of accountability.”
“As a result, many critical decisions were never made clear to council, further contributing to a lack of accountability.”
Among the recommendations from the panel are to establish an independent expert water utility oversight board (WUOB) of five members, operating independently from water utility management, providing council with advice on system reliability, major capital investments, and risk mitigation, focusing on long-term sustainable performance.
"This level of independent expertise is common for critical infrastructure and its unique challenges, including distinct financial requirements (as a regulated utility), provision of an essential service that is core to public health, multi-decade planning horizons, and highly technical content."
"The WUOB will be independent of the potential politicization of decision-making which can be misaligned with the long-range planning and funding needed for the water utility,” says the report. “Together, the panel’s recommendations address the systemic gaps that led to the BPSFM failure, supporting a shift to a culture of accountability and proactive risk management that is essential for effective stewardship of critical infrastructure.”
“Together, the panel’s recommendations address the systemic gaps that led to the BPSFM failure, supporting a shift to a culture of accountability and proactive risk management that is essential for effective stewardship of critical infrastructure.”
On Tuesday, city administration presented its plan to implement recommendations from the panel, including recruitment of a chief operating officer of the water utility and hiring a third-party consultant to determine the next steps to set up a new governance structure to oversee water services, with the executive committee voting to send the recommendations to the regular meeting of city council on Feb. 17.
Calgary Mayor Jeromy Farkas says Calgarians will be consulted and kept informed of how a WUOB would be structured and managed.
“Do we move to a wholly owned subsidiary? Do we consider a privatization of Calgary's water utility? Should we keep that inhouse? Those are live questions and debates that I think really should warrant much greater consultation and engagement with the broader public,” said Farkas “As for costs, the report outlines $3 million will be required to prepare a new governance and organizational structure for water services. Councillors will be asked to green light moving $50 million as well from one reserve into another to replenish the city's utility sustainment reserve.”