Yellowknife (Jan 21/05) - A preliminary estimate of the city's infrastructure gap adds up to a $118 million wish list.

Mayor Gord Van Tighem said big ticket items like a new water treatment facility and renovations to City Hall could seriously stretch the city's resources over the next several years.

The city's 10-year capital plan budgets $103 million - including $66 million from the GNWT - in infrastructure improvement spending. However, Van Tighem said in a perfect world the city could spend a further $118 million.

The city expects many unbudgeted infrastructure items will become mandatory after new territorial and federal regulations on water quality come into effect over the next couple years, said Van Tighem. This could include a multi-million dollar upgrade of the city's sewage treatment plant, even though it received a B+ - one of the highest ratings in the country - from the Sierra Legal Defence fund last year.

"The sky's the limit as far as identifying things," said Van Tighem.

He said major replacements are due, however, mostly because a lot of the city's infrastructure is just plain old.

"If you go in there and look a the dates, some of that equipment there is older than I am, and I'm pretty old," said Van Tighem.

The city estimates that 56-year-old Pumphouse No.1 - where tap water comes in from the Yellowknife River - will cost more than $10 million to replace. Construction is due to begin next year.

On Tuesday, the federal and territorial governments announced $32 million over five years to fund infrastructure needs in the territory, $8 million of which Van Tighem thinks is destined for Yellowknife.

He said it's not a lot of money but hopes the city will fare better once the federal government begins doling out the $5 billion gas tax fund to municipalities across the country this year.

City councillor Doug Witty said he hopes the city can convince federal and territorial regulators to back off on some of the more stringent plans for toughening up water quality rules.

He thinks the quality of Yellowknife's water supply is excellent, and an expensive water treatment plant would be a waste of money. "We're not in southern Canada," said Witty.

"There are going to have to be exceptions to that rule, because communities all across the Arctic don't have that kind of money."

Witty said the city could also save some money if it stopped pumping water out of the river but pumped from Yellowknife Bay instead.

The aging pipe network from Pumphouse No.1 to the river pumphouse intake is 8km long. "It was originally put at that location because of the potential for Giant or Con (Mines) to spill into Great Slave Lake -- so we'd have clean water," said Witty.

"Now that they're in care and maintenance mode, we need to assess that extra expense of having that pumphouse on the (river)."

wish list:

0/00 $20 million for road rehabilitation

0/00 $5 million for Kam Lake bypass road

0/00 $7 million for water treatment plant

0/00 $5 million for new solid waste facility

0/00 $5 million for new library

0/00 $5 million for trails and parks

0/00 $5 million for marina at Giant Mine dock