It can be especially painful if you realize, way back in the responsible part of your brain, that it was going to happen someday and that, perhaps, it would have been cheaper to have faced it months or years ago.

Fuming, complaining, even swearing, are natural, and useless, because, no matter how painful it is, there is no one else who should be expected to pay it for you.

That is the situation facing property owners in a particular section of Millcreek Township, a section that is about to be billed a cumulative $10.8 million to replace their neighborhood's dilapidated water system.

To that amount, add the $3.4 million in administrative costs to be contributed by Salt Lake County and the $3 million from Salt Lake City, which will then be responsible for supplying and maintaining the system. That will build the 20 miles of new water lines, 350 new fire hydrants and all the joints, couplings and connections needed to turn the decrepit system into a modern one with enough water pressure to put out a fire.

Such a bare minimum of modern life will not only protect life, limb and property, but also head off the kind of increase in premiums that can put fire insurance out of reach.

It is understandable that many of the affected residents would, as happened Tuesday, protest the assessments and complain that they shouldn't be punished for the failure of others to fix these problems years before.

But who else is there? This situation wasn't the fault of Salt Lake City, which hadn't been serving that area. And it was not really the fault of the county which, like most counties nationwide, has long been premised on the promise of providing the lowest levels of government services for the least cost.

Now it's time to pay the bill. It works out to a not-so-horrible average cost of $1,688 per parcel, which can be more easily absorbed by a $200 a year payout, and deflected by hardship exemptions for those with the least ability to pay.

Salt Lake City bit a similar bullet a few years ago by spending millions to upgrade its older water lines. The only remaining question is, where else does this need to be done? And can we do it before it gets even more expensive?