Is it safe or is it too soon to tell ...
New Report - Issues encountered in advancing Australia's water recycling schemes
There's an interesting report written by the 2005 Australian Parliamentary Fellow, Dr Sophia Dimitriadis.
Dated 16 August 2005 (so it's hot off the press!), Dr Dimitriadis raises some interesting questions about the current knowledge of the long-term effects of ingesting recycled water.
Here are some quotes from the report:
"Australia takes the position of using the best source of water possible and using recycling to free up drinking water in preference to directly replenishing supplies. Reasons for this approach include the unknown long-term outcomes from ingesting recycled water and the expense involved in programs that monitor the quality of treatment to avoid the possibility of adverse effects." (Page 26)
"At present, experts are rarely able to agree on risk levels. When technical experts cannot agree, it is unlikely that the general public will have confidence in the results. Therefore more research is required about the way in which contaminants operate." (Page 26-27)
"Investment in scientific research is needed - particularly in relation to how contaminants and pathogens can be inactivated, improving treatment plant and pipe system cleaning operations, and improving efficiencies." (Page 36)
This is interesting. The Mayor is telling Toowoomba that recycled water is safe and is bringing in experts to say the same thing and yet here is a report for the Federal Government that clearly states that it's too soon to know the long term effects of drinking recycled water and more scientific research is required.
You can find the research brief here - Parliamentary Brief.
posted by Concerned Ratepayer at 4:09 PM
3 Comments:
Many of your posts about residual chemicals in recycled water (e.g in L.A.) are references to water that has a lesser treatment that that proposed. I suppose that the Council wants to use R.O. treatment to overcome all those concerns. Doesn't Reverse osmosis remove all particles smaller than an individual sodium or chloride atom? Are there any chemicals of concern that are smaller compounds than an sodium ion?
9:34 AM, February 02, 2006
"Doesn't Reverse osmosis remove all particles smaller than an individual sodium or chloride atom? "
Does it?
No-one has come forward in Toowoomba and stated that there will absolutely be no residual chemicals in the water.
Nor have they stated how many of the over 76,000 chemicals in existence they will be testing the water for.
The science is unclear - it is prohibitively expensive to test for all chemicals so they take a guess - some chemicals are at relatively low levels so maybe they all are.
What is emerging in the US is a view that it is unclear what effect the combination of chemicals at low doses will have on humans over the long term.
Regardless of the science, Toowoomba residents should drink water from the best available source.
Toowoomba really will become a joke if residents are forced to drink recycled sewage when drinking water is poured on crops just outside the city limits.
Think about it - it just doesn't make sense does it?
Would you be happy if your Council was making you drink recycled sewage when drinking water is poured on crops?
Probably not!
2:22 PM, February 02, 2006
LA is promoted by Mayor Thorley as using a similar system to that proposed for Toowoomba.
2:26 PM, February 02, 2006
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