Breakage after breakage, the Montreal water system has revealed its full fragility in recent weeks.
Human catastrophes have been narrowly avoided, but material damage is already in the millions.
A burst of examples:
On July 12, a major water pipe burst next to the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC). Surgeries were cancelled, ambulances were diverted: the commotion was immense.
On July 24, a water main break caused water to leak into the Orange Line of the metro. Service was interrupted for nearly two hours during rush hour.
Three days later, a burst pipe in the Rosemont district flooded the three underground floors of the Société de transport de Montréal’s (STM) famous $600 million garage. The extent of the damage was considerable.
And then, on Friday: the apotheosis. A 20-metre-high geyser gushed for hours in the shadow of the Jacques-Cartier Bridge, after a major pipeline installed in 1985 burst.
PHOTO PATRICK SANFAÇON, THE PRESS
Major water main rupture, corner of René-Lévesque and De Lorimier, causing major flooding in the area
The incidents are piling up, and in the most recent case the damage is enormous.
I went to the site on Friday afternoon, a few hours after the leak began. The geyser had calmed down, and I was able to get close enough to see the power of what happened here.
The water rushed so hard that the roadway, the sub-roadway and pieces of the pipeline were propelled into the air. Large blocks of bitumen were scattered all around the site of the leak, in a sea of mud. It was almost a miracle that there were no injuries.
In the surrounding streets, water flooded dozens of apartments. The underground garages of several buildings, including the Bell Media offices, were filled to the brim.
PHOTO PATRICK SANFAÇON, THE PRESS
Major water main rupture, corner of René-Lévesque and De Lorimier, causing major flooding in the area. Flooded basement, Cartier Street.
The big clean-up will take time and cost a small fortune. My best wishes to this new cohort of disaster victims.
The response of the authorities – firefighters, police, blue-collar workers, elected officials – was muscular and rapid, I must emphasize. Communication was effective throughout the day.
The interview I did with Chantal Morissette, director of the City of Montreal’s Water Department since 2011, also allowed me to learn a lot about the circumstances of this leak – and about the general state of the water system.
The poor quality of the pipes installed in the 1970s and 1980s – like the one that burst on Friday – means they have a much shorter lifespan than the old century-old aqueducts, she explained. Tough luck: there are 700 kilometres of them underground in Montreal.
Their degradation is generally caused “by wear and tear, corrosion, freeze-thaw cycles, water around the pipe and de-icing salt.”
As for Friday’s breakup, “at present, we do not suspect anything other than the wear and tear of time,” she said.
Several of the most spectacular ruptures in recent years have occurred in pipes of this same generation, the “C301” range. The City has launched a vast program to “auscultate” them all, but the entire network has not yet been inspected.
It is a delicate and complicated exercise. Sometimes it requires using robots to examine the inside of the pipes. Other times, it requires interrupting the water supply to an entire neighborhood.
Chantal Morissette could not tell me whether the pipe that burst Friday had been checked by her teams. But she says several major ruptures have been avoided thanks to the monitoring program.
Major leaks are making headlines, and rightly so. But overall, and this is little known, the Montreal water system is in much better health today than it was a few years ago.
The rate of ruptures per 100 kilometers – the flagship measure for assessing its condition – has halved in a decade. It went from 24.3 in 2011 to 12.5 in 2022.
The city has reinvested massively in its underground during this period, after years of starving funding. This partly explains the sea of orange cones that clutter the streets of the metropolis.
The network is still leaking everywhere, but here again, the situation has improved. Water production per person has decreased by more than 30% since 2011 in Montreal, a sign that the incessant replacement and plugging work is bearing fruit.
Investments in recent years have averaged around 500 million a year. That’s a lot, but not enough. At least 1.3 billion would have to be injected every year to keep up, estimates Chantal Morissette.
Because in addition to all these pipes from the 1970s and 1980s that will have to be repaired, it will also be necessary to accelerate the replacement of the century-old aqueducts, which have also reached the end of their life.
The objective is clear: “not to lose control again”. A major reinvestment will be “the crux of the matter”, says the head of the water service.
Where will Montreal find all this money? That’s the $1.3 billion question.