If you missed the dynamite blasts last week, maybe the cranes will get your attention.

Workers along the Augusta Canal are adding new technology -- and a pair of 2,500-horsepower pumps -- to one of America's oldest water-pumping stations.

"When this is finished, we'll reliably be able to pump 60 million gallons per day from either the canal or the river," said Drew Goins, the assistant director of Augusta's Utilities Department.

Augusta's water system, in continuous operation since the late 1800s, uses water-powered turbines to pump canal water to the city's Highland Avenue treatment plant, where it is filtered and transformed into drinking water.

As part of a three-year, $63 million expansion that will help guarantee adequate water for the next half-century, the pumping station between the canal and Savannah River is being modified, too.

The existing system, with a 45 million gallons-per-day capacity, is designed mainly to pump from the canal but is limited to 16 million gallons per day from the river.

The addition of two diesel turbines and new pipes will give operators the option of pumping with water power or using diesel pumps in the event of a water shortage.

Mr. Goins said the ability to pull from the river or the canal gives flexibility if the canal is unusable because of contamination or mechanical failure.

The work includes digging a well into the bedrock below the Savannah River's channel, where water will collect to be pumped out.

"We think this part of it will be finished in winter of 2008-09," Mr. Goins said.

The canal will have to be drained for several weeks so workers can run new pipes beneath it.

"It could be down as long as four weeks, but we're working to minimize that," Mr. Goins said.

Water demand is lower in winter, and there is less recreational use of the canal, including the tour boats that operate from the Interpretive Center.