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SAINT JOHN - In spots, Saint John's drinking water swirls through wooden pipes - pieces of an antiquated, patch-work water treatment system that offers the same level of safety it did a century ago.

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KATÉ LeBlanc/Telegraph-JournalTony Gower from Alltech Solutions Inc. gets ready to launch the head of a device that sprays a polyeurothane lining through a water pipe, an economical way to rehibilitate old pipes.

The system that provides water to tens of thousands of residents provides almost no protection against cryptosporidium, a bug that can cause serious waterborne epidemics. It offers only part-time protection against giardia, a nasty intestinal parasite. The water will not meet impending federal health guidelines and, over many decades, it may cause cancer.

Only chlorine keeps viruses and bacteria out of citizens' glasses and, if chlorination fails, the city must issue boil orders, something it's done three times this year already. Combined with an average of more than one burst pipe each week - there were 68 last year - and the city is left with a public desperate for a new, improved system. Now.

The city's top water officials say it will cost $200 million to fix. Saint John is Canada's oldest incorporated city, and it has the country's oldest water system.

"If we had all the money in the world, we'd just build a new (system) and move Saint John a few miles inland," said Paul Groody, the city's commissioner of Operation and Engineering and the head of Saint John Water.

But the city doesn't have all the money in the world, so ratepayers have seen their bills rise almost every year this decade. A complete water and wastewater bill has risen to $696 from $395 in 2001, and will continue to rise.

The water utility's annual operating budget has increased by about $12 million thanks to the increased bills. But where has that money gone? Does it really need to cost $200 million to make the city's drinking water safe?

Groody makes clear that those hoping for immediate change will be disappointed.

"Our objective has to be as soon as possible, but probably in the order of five to seven years," he said. That meshes well with recent comments made by Mayor Ivan Court, who said he would like to make handshakes with the higher levels of government over funding during this council term, possibly in two years. Once the spade work begins, construction of the two filtration plants would likely take 24 to 30 months.

Groody says that people frustrated with the slow pace have to consider that, until 1999, the city paid little attention to its water infrastructure beyond replacing parts as they broke.

"Saint John went 150 years doing basically nothing to its water system," he said. "And we're now trying to change things in a very short period of time."

The city first started talking seriously about water treatment in 1999. Common council commissioned a $100,000 study that suggested Saint John spend $63 million building a water treatment plant at Latimer Lake to supply drinking water to the entire city. A consultant called two treatment plants "a non-starter" because of the increased costs.

The city was talking $200 million back then too, but that included the harbour cleanup project, which eventually came in with a price tag of about $88 million.

However, in 2003 a consultant presenting a report about the city's eastern water system said the two-plant option should be reconsidered. The western and eastern water systems - essentially two different systems - are connected by only one 19-inch steel pipe. Having only one plant would leave the West Side vulnerable to a "very lengthy" disruption in water service.

By November of 2004, council approved a new plan that would see two filtration plants built in the name of system redundancy.

Groody stands by the more costly choice. He notes that Spruce Lake in the west and Loch Lomond in the east are both immediately next to busy roads. If a transport truck carrying chemicals crashed into the lake, the value of a redundant system would become clear, he said.

Brent McGovern, the city's manager of water and wastewater, added that a one-plant system would require more or better pumping stations, as well as more electricity.

"It's not like you save the cost of a plant," he said.

Both men say the apparent delay since 1999 in improved water treatment is a false perception. The system was so far behind the times in 1999 that tens of millions in improvements needed to be made before treatment plants could be built, and a similar amount of work remains to be done.

Groody has said repeatedly that having new treatment plants would be pointless if they are connected to a poorly maintained network of pipes.

Since 1999, there have been 46 kilometres of pipe improvements - either rehabilitation or complete replacement - in a system with 512 kilometres of pipe. There have also been upgrades of almost every pumping station in the city, two new tanks built, new electrical and chlorination systems installed, and an overhaul of how water flows through both systems. The monitoring system has also been greatly improved and computerized, which ironically will likely mean more boil-water orders.

In all, there have been 96 capital projects worth $51 million, Groody said.

When the water and wastewater report was released, harbour cleanup soon jumped to the front of the public consciousness, and Groody sees the projects as equally necessary. The collection and treatment of the city's sewage, which currently flows directly into the Saint John Harbour, is getting two-thirds of the utility's money this year. But as time goes on, the city's spending will gradually slide in the direction of drinking water over waste water.

By 2012, the long-term projection is for almost 80 per cent of spending to be on drinking water.

In the meantime, Saint John residents will have to wait before they can be assured that their water meets this century's standards.