POINTE CLAIRE - Pointe Claire has shelled out for an eco-friendly, $3.5-million new way to heat its famous pools.

But no fear, the environmentally-responsible system will be paying for itself – eventually.

Pointe Claire Mayor Bill McMurchie said the price tag, which includes $1 million dollars for each of the two units, will be paid by a savings of $100,000 per annum over 10 years.

"This is a fairly major step for a municipality of our size in the road to green," McMurchie said.

The system takes 95 per cent of the energy required for refrigerating the adjacent ice rinks – energy which currently goes to waste – to heat the water.

"All that steam that we see coming out of the condensers at the arena, all of that energy, a lot of it will be brought in here to heat this air and keep this pool comfortable," said Bruce Gannon, building systems foreman for the project.