If you’re a Bend resident, you should be pleased to know that the City Council likely will agree Wednesday to move forward with a membrane water filtration system for water it draws from Bridge Creek, west of Bend. Agreement will come in the form of an amendment to the city’s contract with the M.A. Mortenson Construction company guaranteeing a $24 million maximum for building the system. That’s a good thing.

No matter what the final fate of the city’s plans to modernize the complete Bridge Creek system, this piece is critical.

The city must begin treating its Bridge Creek water to comply with the federal Safe Drinking Water Act. In fact, that law required a treatment system be in place by 2012. The city has received a waiver that gives it until October of this year to get the job done.

Meanwhile, councilors opted for the membrane filtration system over a less-expensive ultraviolet light treatment system because the former can be designed to remove sediment in the water. That means it can operate even during a wildfire that dumps sediment into the stream. An ultraviolet light system, meanwhile, cannot work if the water it’s treating is too filled with sediment.

The Safe Drinking Water Act was adopted in 1974 and has been amended a couple of times since then. The current push for treatment systems is aimed at cryptosporidium, which, like its cousin, giardia, is a particularly nasty parasite that is spread largely through water.

Both are the product of water contamination by fecal matter — either animal or human — and both create the kind of intestinal “events” that no one wants to experience. Crypto is particularly dangerous for young children, pregnant women and those with compromised immune systems.

Despite chemical spills and traces of such things as antibiotics in many public water supplies, the U.S. continues to have some of the safest drinking water in the world. People here do not routinely fall ill because of cryptosporidium, largely because the Environmental Protection Agency requires that municipal water supplies treat to remove the parasite.

Bend now has less than nine months to get its treatment system, and the safety that comes with it, in place. Wednesday’s vote to move forward with its plans is good news for everyone who drinks the city’s water.