During the year 1906 the city of Fort William began tunnelling through the rock of Mount McKay and laying water pipe, but it was not until 1909 that the first water flowed through the pipes and into the homes of residents of Fort William. The engineering department of the city of Fort William was headed by city engineer H. Sydney Hancock Jr., who was Waterworks engineer from February 1906 to February 1911. He was in charge of the construction of the Loch Lomond Water Supply system. Fort William's water supply was contaminated in 1906 leading to a typhoid epidemic. The City Council's response was to construct a tunnel under the Kaministiquia River to bring pure water to Fort William from Loch Lomond. Tunnels were drilled through Mount McKay to the Loch at a final cost of $500,000. The system was completed in 1910. In 2006, the Bare Point Water Treatment Plant on Thunder Bay was expanded to serve the entire city from a single source.