Mayor hopes Calgary's upcoming water restrictions will have 'no impact' on businesses

Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek says the city is hoping upcoming water restrictions will have "no impact" on businesses.

The city will see Stage 4 outdoor water restrictions return from Aug. 26 until approximately Sept. 23, as city crews work to repair 16 new sites on a feeder main affected by a major break two months ago.

Speaking during a public update on Friday, Gondek said there have been questions about how the restrictions will impact indoor water usage for businesses like dentist’s offices, dog groomers and hair stylists.

“We want to have no impact on businesses,” she said. "We will continue to watch what we're doing in terms of water consumption, and I would ask you all to please consider ways – whether you are a business or at home – to reduce your indoor water usage."

Gondek said there have also been questions raised about how the upcoming outdoor water restrictions will affect landscaping businesses, window washers and other businesses that rely on outdoor water usage.

"I can tell you that our city teams are in conversations right now with the types of businesses that rely on outdoor water, and they are coming up with solutions so that those businesses can keep running," Gondek said.

Landscaping company loses $300,000

Despite Mayor Gondek’s show of support for small business owners, several local companies that rely heavily on water are struggling financially.

“I would estimate that the June water restrictions cost our company over $300,000 in new sales, so that’s anywhere between 25 to 50 per cent of our sales for that month” said James Szojka, owner of Yard Dawgs Lawn Care.

“We all paid our taxes and expect the water to work. If this was an oil and gas company and they had one of their pipes bursting, the news would be all over them, they'd be getting so much scrutiny from the media, but they'd have that fixed in three to five days, at whatever cost takes."

Szojka notes that his team has had to fill its water tanks with shipments of water from other nearby cities at an additional cost.

The biggest issue has come, however, in having to purchase new compostable fertilizers that don’t require water.

“If we put down fertilizer, the people can't water the fertilizer in. It's hard for it to start working to actually get the effects happening so from our company perspective, we had to completely change our fertilizer program to make it very much more compost based,” he said.

“Now that's a huge added expense for us that we're not going to pass over to our customers because a lot of them had already paid for the season. We just adjusted the program and took the hit also.”

Frustration from northwest Calgary residents, businesses

Several residents living along 33 Avenue N.W. where construction work is expected to take place are demanding answers from the city as to what roads, detours or excavation efforts might be occurring just steps from their homes.

Resident Tim Sutherland says the lack of communication from the city has been his biggest issues.

“We don’t know anything about the excavation work, it was announced on Wednesday, it’s now Friday and know nothing,” he said.

“It’s really quite disappointing that the city who is going to be disrupting our street can’t tell me where I can park, I don’t know if it’s going to be curb to curb excavation or something else.”

Meanwhile, other local dog-grooming businesses like Canine Cuts in Bowness are also expressing frustration over once again having to cut back on their water use by 25 per cent.

“I can’t bathe 25 per cent of a dog,” said owner Christena Callaghan.

“I can’t tell dog owners to pre-wash their dogs, there’s no possible way to prepare for this. We lost 50 per cent of our business in June and lost 100 per cent of sales for three days because of construction work.”

No information on detours or road closures

Mayor Gondek noted at a press conference Friday afternoon that she had joined city workers for a short period of time this week to speak with 45 businesses in Montgomery and knock on the doors of 100 homes in Bowness.

Despite the consultation efforts that took place, the city still has no information as to what detours or road closures will take place or how they will impact access into these communities as construction begins Aug. 28.

“I think an important element here is listening to people’s experiences so when spoke with the business improvement area leads and the community association and resident, they have a lot of insight into what it was like to go through this in June,” said Gondek.

“The type of things they are offering us will help us find out how to block traffic, we need to talk to schools that are going to be impacted so you can see there are a lot of people who have first-hand lived experience in that area.”

Gondek also added that the reason the announcement about the work was made three weeks in advance was so these conversations could happen.

On Friday, the mayor also took time to thank members of the Montgomery and Bowness business improvement areas and Bowness Community Association, who met with Calgary councillors on Thursday to discuss their concerns and what they'd recommend when work to fix the 16 new sites starts.

Gondek encouraged Calgarians to "rally around" businesses in Bowness and Montgomery, which have been greatly impacted by the June water main rupture.

Meanwhile, the city is considering ways to strengthen a key water main for the long term, including replacing it altogether.

Gondek said in the spring, the city could add a liner or a sleeve to the pipe to strengthen it, or dig alongside it and build an entirely new one.

With files from The Canadian Press