With seven days until Sharpsville leaders must tell contractors if they can turn dirt on a $10 million water treatment plant, council members Tuesday spent about two hours re-hashing different angles of the issue.

Crunch time is 7 p.m. today, the last regular council meeting before a May 20 deadline on the bids council opened in February that pegged the cost of construction at $8.06 million. Add to that the costs spent so far studying and designing a plant along with anticipated overruns and the cost comes in at about $10 million.

It’s cash the borough doesn’t have and doesn’t anticipate getting in a week.

Voices were raised several times, and council President Tom Lally had to gavel the packed borough building to order.

Under orders from the state Department of Environmental Protection to improve water quality, Sharpsville faces the choice of building a new plant or hooking up with a commercial supplier, most likely Aqua America.

The first option requires the town to borrow the cost of construction. The second could cost the borough less than it does to produce its own water.

The situation comes two years after voters overwhelmingly rejected a plan to sell the town’s water system to Aqua for $7 million.

But there are several “buts” to the issue.

“It’s not as simple as shutting down the plant and hooking up with Aqua,” councilman John Alfredo said.

He said an engineering study would need to be done to determine the effects of switching water supplies and that the borough might have to build pump stations or other infrastructure that could cost more money.

Alfredo disputed the numbers that were floated at a town hall meeting last week that indicated choosing Aqua was the most-cost-effective choice.

Most of the residents at the meeting favored buying bulk water.

The naysayers had at it on Tuesday: Alfredo and councilmen Chris Combine questioned whether buying bulk water is the best way for the borough to proceed.

The figures that have been presented are “unscientific and convenient” numbers, Combine said.

“To know, we have to compare apples to apples,” he said.