CALGARY – Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek is reassuring residents of the city that their water is safe to drink after announcing a sewage pipe underneath the Bow River had to be shut down due to a leak.
Gondek told a news conference on Saturday that there are three pipes underneath the river that supply the Bonnybrook Wastewater Treatment Plant, and that the other two pipes have been able to handle the additional flow.
She says Alberta Health Services confirms drinking water in Calgary remains safe to consume, and that the risk to the public is extremely low based on the available information.
The city’s general manager of operational services told reporters that staff first noticed the Bonnybrook plant was receiving less wastewater than normal on March 19, and they began looking for possible causes like seasonal fluctuations.
Doug Morgan says on Thursday, crews took river water samples from near the plant for testing, and after learning on Friday they contained elevated E. coli levels, staff did another visual inspection of the river and spotted the leak.
Morgan says there’s no word yet on the cause of the leak, and the city is still compiling an estimate on how much sewage leaked into the river, which he says will be based on how much less wastewater the Bonnybrook plant has been receiving.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 29, 2025.
