Calgary lost 23 per cent of its water in 2025: report
Posted Jun 3, 2026 8:31 am.
Last Updated Jun 3, 2026 8:42 am.
Calgary lost 23 per cent of its water in 2025, and the city wants to spend $342 million to fix it.
According to a report presented at the Infrastructure and Committee meeting on Tuesday, Calgary has lost an estimated 20-24 per cent of its drinking water from 2018 to 2025 due to leaks, aging infrastructure and other system inefficiencies.
It also says 23 per cent of the city’s treated water was lost in 2025 before it could be billed to customers.
The city’s Climate and Environment dashboard says daily usage was 522 million litres in 2025. Twenty-three per cent means just over 120 million litres of water each day, amounting to over 40 billion litres lost in 2025
“Calgary has a large complex distribution system, and finding leaks can be challenging. A lot of Calgary soil is gravelly and porous, so some of those leaks don’t come to surface. We have to actively go out, look, and listen for those,” said the city’s deputy director of drinking water, Ryan Kidd.
To tackle the problem, the planning and infrastructure committee approved a proposed $342 million investment for the city’s next four-year budget.
However, committee member Ward 6 councillor John Pantazopoulos says there should be a plan for spending with “clear objectives and KPIs.”
“We have to get that 23 per cent down. We’re talking 200 million litres — 80 Olympic-sized swimming pools during the hottest days of the summer,” said Ward 6 councillor John Pantazopoulos.
“We have to get that down, and instead of spending money without an accountability in the plan, we now have an accountability process and feedback loop from administration back into council to make sure that every single dollar we spend does have a clear objective.”
The report points to the two failures of the Bearspaw South Feeder Main as a reminder of the vulnerabilities within Calgary’s aging water system.
Committee member Ward 10 councillor Andre Chabot says that because the city needs an additional water plant to meet daily demands, it will be beneficial to invest in infrastructure to help reduce water loss.
“We need to build an additional water treatment plant to meet the daily demands. Our systems are based around peak demand, and if water loss contributes to us needing to add more capacity to ensure we provide reliable, safe water delivery — including fire protection — then this cost avoidance is essentially what we’re looking to achieve out of this,” he said.
The funding still needs full council approval. City officials say the goal is simple — find leaks faster, waste less water and avoid bigger costs down the road.
