Dollars (Thousands)

	2003/2004	2002/2003	2001/2002	2000/2001	1999/2000
Providing public drinking water	274.4	400.0	871.6	no data	no data
Maintaining recreational and heritage sites	no data	1,980.4	4,239.8	no data	no data
Maintaining roads and trail building/ maintenance	no data	155.7	367.1	no data	no data
Strategic Research and Development	3,287.0	3,400.0	3,700.0	3,800.0	4,100.0
Totals	3,561.4	5,936.1	9,178.5

Some historic data was unavailable. The 2003/2004 total does not include spending on maintenance on roads, trails, and recreational and heritage sites. Spending shown is operation, maintenance and overhead funds, and does not include depreciation on capital expenses or external funding leveraged as a result of initial investment by BC Hydro. BC Hydro provides domestic drinking water to generating stations, substations, town sites, recreation sites, visitor centres and in four communities. Overall, these costs declined as systems were divested to local communities, but some increased spending was required to meet the requirements of the B.C. Water Protection Act. The Strategic Research and Development (SR&D) program is expanding from its traditional focus on infrastructure technologies to address all aspects of BC Hydro's and BC Transmission Corporation's business, with a balance of short, mid and long-term objectives and a range of risks. Projects include Intelligent Control of Power Systems, High Voltage Optical Measurement, Life Extension of Transformer Insulation, Oil Leak Detection, the Hydrogen Program and projects related to improving sustainability at BC Hydro and BCTC. The combined SR&D budget for BC Hydro and BCTC in 2004/2005 is expected to be $10.69 million.