Published: December 30, 2009 4:00 PM
Updated: December 30, 2009 4:34 PM

Forget the pricey New Year's champagne.

Metro Vancouverites can pour a glass of tap water if they want to taste something expensive.

Water filtered by the region's new $800-million filtration plant on the North Shore began to flow through water lines in mid-December.

The price tag of the project is equivalent to $360 per Metro resident, or several bottles worth of bubbly.

About half the water being drawn from the Seymour reservoir is now being filtered, according to Metro Vancouver spokesman Bill Morrell, adding that will ramp up in the weeks ahead.

"We expect that by the time the Olympics arrive, 100 per cent of the water coming out of the Seymour source will be filtered."

Tunnel boring machine used to drill tunnels connecting Capilano reservoir to the new filtration plant.

The system, which also disinfects using ultraviolet light and chlorine, should eliminate rare bouts of turbid, cloudy water that sometimes occur when storms or mudslides stir up silt in the North Shore reservoirs.

There's conflicting evidence as to whether the discoloured water at such times poses any real increased health risk or just looks unappealing.

The neighbouring Capilano watershed won't be hooked up to the filtration plant until early 2013.

That's because work on seven-kilometre-long twin tunnels to deliver the water through Grouse Mountain is still far behind schedule after the original tunneling contractor encountered unstable rock and halted work in early 2008.

Metro fired Bilfinger Berger and retendered the contract.

The new contractors have drilled about one kilometre further since resuming work in July – progress Morrell called encouraging.

The cost of the project has gone nearly $200 million over the original budget because of the tunnel trouble, but Metro is suing Bilfinger over the contract termination and could recover some costs if successful.

The Seymour Capilano Filtration Project is one factor pushing up regional taxes and that's also part of the reason Metro has been urging residents to use tap water rather than bottled water.

The plant will be capable of filtering 1.8 billion litres of water a day, serving 70 per cent of Metro Vancouver residents.

Metro's eastern suburbs get their water primarily from the Coquitlam source, rather than the North Shore.