Calgary is one of the fastest growing cities in Canada (population 1 050 000). The City's Water Services provides drinking water to a variety of customers, including 260 000 residential customers, 20 000 industrial, commercial and institutional customers, as well as customers in the surrounding communities of Airdrie and Chestermere.

The Bearspaw water treatment plant draws water from the Bow River. The river has recorded turbidities of more then 1000 NTU (nephelometric turbidity units) during spring runoff, which caused temporary overload for the existing pretreatment sedimentation basins and filters.

The City of Calgary Water Services invested $200 million in upgrades to Calgary's water treatment plants. The City's two water treatment plants — Bearspaw and Glenmore — underwent extensive upgrades, aimed at improving the ability to produce high quality drinking water that meets the increasingly stringent regulatory requirements imposed by the federal and provincial regulations.

Another important goal of the upgrades is to improve overall plant capacity to ensure they can meet the increasing demand for water in Calgary. After expansion, the Bearspaw plant will be capable of producing up to 550 million litres of water per day.

At Bearspaw, John Meunier will supply six ACTIFLO clarifiers (total capacity 586,000 m³/d.), polymer metering systems and control systems. Located in a new building - the Pretreatment facility -, the ACTIFLO process will remove turbidity and organics prior to the filtration process.