Watershed+ public art project has Calgary residents raising a stink

The city has inaugurated a public art project with a nod to Calgary's undergroundsewage system, but the above-ground installation has angered some residents.

The Forest Lawn lift station pulls wastewater from low-lying areas to higher areas where it can flow by gravity to one of Calgary's three wastewater treatment plants.

As part of the city's Watershed+ art initiative, the exterior of the building features a livemap in LED lights thatshowsreal-time sewage flows inthe 4,500 kilometres of underground wastewater pipes connected to the station.

Responding to live data, the lights change colour revealing the wastewater flow variations as it makes its way to the Bonnybrook Wastewater Treatment Plant.

But thepublic artis drawing fire from local residents, who say the installation has caused property values to plummetas it blocks their views ofthe mountains and downtown.

"They just stole their million-dollar views,... and now they get to look at a neon outhouse," said Ted Bohdean about the homes directly across from the lift station.

Property value concerns

He also owns property nearby, and expects the value to drop significantly. He wishes the city hadleft the lift station down the hill and out of sight.

But the city says the lift station had to be built with a defined setback away from the slope due to stability concerns.

"There is evidence of sloughing along the slope," said city spokespersonJennifer Storm in an email. "Therefore it would not be feasible for the new lift station to be oriented in the same way as the existing one without having to build deep foundations making the option cost prohibitive."

She said they would have also neededlarger pipes to the lift the sewage up an additional 10 metres in elevation, and the construction for the tie-ins to the community would have been more disruptive.

Storm said moving the current location would cost the city a lot of money and construction headaches for local residents.

"The site of the new lift station facilitated tie-ins to the existing lift station with no impacts on the service to the community," she said.

Nenshi reacts to 'poop palace' comments

Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi says he likes the new installation, but knows there are critics out there.

"These are the sort of people who think the word poop is funny, and they'll just say it as much as they can," Nenshi said about those who dubbed the lift station a "poop palace."

"If there is a more thoughtful critique, I would like to hear it."

He says he stands behinds the city's policy to spend one per cent of the project costson public art and community integration.

Artists defend project

The project was designed by Sansfaon, a Scottishartist-architect duomade up ofTristanSurteesand CharlesBlanc.

"There are always naysayers for whatever is happening," said Blanc.

A living piece of art

9 years ago

Duration 1:02

Watershed+ transforms every time people turn on their shower or flush their toilets. Sans faon artists Charles Blanc and Tristan Surtees explains how it works.

The artists also point out that while some residents are chirping about the installation,not everyone in the neighbourhood feels the same.

"We've had lots of wonderfulreaction," said Surtees. "People fascinated to place where they live on that map andfind their location in the system and understand that there's four to five thousand kilometres of pipes under the city and this is one segment of that."