The city is considering how it'll get its drinking water for the future, and what it is willing to pay for it.

The current 8.5 km underwater line - which makes its way from a pumphouse on the mouth of the Yellowknife River to another pumphouse near the current water treatment plant - is aging and is in need of replacement.

The cost of that replacement? As discussed during a Governance and Priorities Committee meeting on Monday, it could be as high as $107 million.

In 2019, Ottawa gave the city $26 million in funding to replace its current aging pipe between the river and the water treatment plant. Over the years, the total cost for that pipeline has drastically risen. By 2021, the cost had grown to $34.5 million dollars and was slated to be complete by 2024.

When SA国际影视传媒 spoke to Mayor Rebecca Alty about what was happening to the line, she said the project had ballooned to $62.7 million.

During Monday's meeting, AECOM, an infrastructure consulting firm, sent some of its representatives to present to councillors where the city could get its drinking water. According to that presentation, the city's existing pipeline has limited capacity due to its size, pressure rating and infrastructure at one of its pumphouses. It also noted that diver inspections in 2016 found leaks in the pipeline.

According to AECOM's presentation, both pumphouses are in need of some fixes, in particular pumphouse one.

"Pumphouse one is your most critical piece of infrastructure in the city," said Ryan King, a project lead at AECOM, one of the presenters. "If pumphouse one goes down, there will be some excitement in getting water to the city. I'll put it that way."

Going forward, AECOM's presentation lays out four options for council:

• Continue using the Yellowknife River as the long-term source of water, but with a swanky new pipeline and makeovers to both pumphouses;
• Start using Yellowknife Bay to draw water, with no backup from the Yellowknife River. Doing this would also mean making sure any of the water the city draws from the Bay does not contain any arsenic. Fixing up pumphouse one would still be needed;
• Keep with what AECOM calls the status quo: the city would keep getting its water from the river until it no longer can. It would then switch to Yellowknife Bay once necessary. All money would go into upgrading pumphouse one;
• Draw from both the bay and the river. This option still includes making any needed repairs to both pumphouses and making sure arsenic isn't seeping through as well.

The four choices were scored based on the reliability of the water supply, susceptibility to raw water quality changes, a 25-year life cycle cost, ability to construct it and how easy it would be to operate it.

The city doesn't technically need to spend $107 million if it wants to have reliable drinking water in the future, but it's the best option based on how AECOM evaluated everything. The other option is stay with the status quo.

Alty said council and administration are expected to talk more about this during another meeting scheduled for March 10.