No one has to explain to Steve Horoky the problems facing the rusting wreck that is Canada's sewer, water treatment and drinking water system.

The Windsor, Ont., resident's basement is a high-water mark of the country's outdated and under-maintained sewers, a legacy of years of funding cuts.

Three times in the past 12 years, Horoky's basement has flooded, thanks to storm water that Windsor's sewer network couldn't handle.

Each time, more than a half-metre of raw sewage seeped into his basement, destroying furniture, carpets, panelling and flooring.

Now, with every rainfall, "you run to the basement to look - in our neighbourhood, we all do," Horoky said.

Windsor is joined by many other Canadian cities facing the enormous task of upgrading or replacing aging water mains and sewers.

In addition, it is estimated that it will take upward of $31 billion to fix drinking water, waste water treatment plants and sewer systems across Canada.

The enormity of the challenges - and the tragic consequences of continued funding shortfalls - are mind-boggling. In Walkerton, Ont., seven people died from E. coli in drinking water in 2000. A year later, in North Battleford, Sask., a similar water problem caused 14,000 residents to become ill, many of them requiring hospitalization.

And it has had a lasting effect on the public's confidence.

"I still don't drink it. You know, once-bitten," said North Battleford truck driver Gerald Hilliard, who was hospitalized twice with severe diarrhea in 2001.

Drinking water problems have almost become routine, with boil-water orders abounding and clean drinking water still a major and unresolved health issue on some aboriginal reserves.

Montreal provides a bit of a snapshot of the country when it comes to water infrastructure.

It has a 6,440-kilometre network of sewer mains. Laid end-to-end, its pipes would stretch from Nanaimo, B.C., to Sydney, N.S.

A full 33 per cent of the mains have reached their life expectancy and another 34 per cent will by 2020.

An astoundingly inefficient 40 per cent of potable water leaks from Montreal's crumbling underground water mains.

The estimated cost to fix the sewer and water mains is $4 billion over 20 years; Montreal's 2008 budget allocated just $60.5 million.

On the other hand, its one waste water treatment plant, the third-largest in the world, has made major strides. Built in 1984 to stop island municipalities from dumping raw sewage right into the St. Lawrence River, the plant receives about half the sewage produced in the province. It needs a disinfection treatment process added, but at a far more manageable price tag of $200 million.

Ottawa and Toronto have some of the same issues. They need to replace aging sewers and water mains - in Toronto's case, on a massive scale. Toronto has to replace 462,000 water meters over the next six years to improve efficiency and reduce operating costs. The proposed cost for all its work is $7.7 billion over the next 10 years, with only $429 million in the 2009 budget.

Like many cities, it is increasingly turning to municipal taxpayers to foot the bill. In the nation's capital this year, a drop in water pressure in Ottawa's downtown core prompted the House of Commons to shut down early one afternoon as a fire safety precaution. MPs and political staffers were free to remain in the buildings, but all other employees were told to go home.

Its water rate just increased nine per cent for residents, or an average of $47 per home.

While it may all look bleak, there may be opportunity in waste water, a sort of black gold.

Biogas, produced from waste, can provide heat. Biosolids from waste water can also be burned to generate heat and electricity or used for fertilizer.

Sweden powers its public buses with sewage. Metro Vancouver is proposing to capture and purify biogas from sewage plants into natural gas for the public grid as it develops a $1-billion secondary treatment plant upgrade project.

If Vancouver holds the hope of the future, then Victoria, across the Strait of Georgia, literally is the stain of the past when it comes to waste water.

Held back by complicated municipal politics - and a belief held by some that the ocean's deep cold currents safely diffuse the 129 million litres a day of untreated waste discharged into the Pacific Ocean - Victoria became a disturbing icon of environmental management paralysis.

Frustrated at the lack of action, environmentalists created a mascot named Mr. Floatie - a giant talking piece of fecal matter - and thrust Victoria's dirty little debate into the international media spotlight.

Faced with mounting political pressure, British Columbia ordered Victoria in 2006 to build plants capable of secondary treatment or better.

The federal, provincial and municipal governments have agreed to split the cost three ways. Even so, Victoria residents are projected to pay as much as $700 a year in extra taxes to fund the project.

"The $1.2-billion price tag will make it one of the largest sewage projects in the world in a developed community," said Dwayne Kalynchuk, Victoria's environmental services general manager.

Victoria might have a longer-term economic upside to improving its waste water infrastructure, beyond the initial construction jobs.

A recent B.C. study said gas from Victoria's sewage has the potential to heat one-third of the region's buildings, power 10,000 houses with electricity and eliminate 80,000 cars' worth of greenhouse gases.

Back in Windsor, Councillor Alan Halberstadt, who represents the flood-troubled area where Horoky lives, says progress is being made in convincing the federal and provincial governments that cities need cash to deal with these issues.

"They know infrastructure is crumbling and they have to maintain it."