CSIRO - formal EDC management strategy is some way off ...
With the Toowoomba City Council set to discuss endocrine disrupting chemicals at its committee meetings this week, here are some recent comments from the CSIRO on the issue:
But the exact impact of EDCs in Australia is still not clear, because our research efforts are "much less comprehensive" than overseas, says the CSIRO.
"The change in sex in fish is mainly observed in the UK and other countries," said Rai Kookana, a land and water scientist.
"That's the weakest link in Australia … We don't really know what sort of levels are here in our waterways."
To rectify this, CSIRO is using the Murray rainbow fish as a case study to find out what impact EDCs are having on native fish.
As in Britain, oestrogen from the contraceptive pill is also a major source of EDCs in Australia. The others are natural hormones (also excreted in urine) and industrial chemicals such as pesticides, dioxins, cadmium, lead and detergents.
The problem is that sewerage treatment systems are not designed to filter out chemicals such as oestrogen. Upgrading sewerage systems to filter out oestrogen would be expensive, said Dr Kookana. "It's inherently not designed for these chemicals," he said.
With study of these chemicals still in the early stages, CSIRO says a formal EDC management strategy is "some way off".
28 January 2006
See - The Age report on EDCs.
posted by Concerned Ratepayer at 8:20 PM
3 Comments:
The proposed facility under the Water Futures project will treat the sewage to a better standard. However, there remains the issue of the residual chemicals - 30mg/L TDS going into Cooby Dam which the Council doesn't like to talk about.
9:16 PM, February 21, 2006
Better standard than what! Cooby water. Concerned ratepayer you just contradicted yourself. 30mg/L TDS is in the finished substance.
At the end of the day (where have I heard that saying) one source is from sewage and one is from rain.
How can recycled sewage with all the unknown chemicals in it be better than what falls from the sky.
Anyway who said this recycled substance is going to Cooby. It is not going to happen.
11:59 PM, February 21, 2006
Better standard than the sewage treatment referred to in the article.
I take the view that the article was referring to treatment facilities of an inferior standard to that proposed for Toowoomba.
Notwithstanding the ability to use better treatment facilities, 30mg/L of TDS remains in the recycled water (contrary to the Council's claims that it is pure h2o) and endocrine disrupting chemicals remain a concern.
I agree that the recycled water won't be going into Cooby Dam (see the seven barriers to Water Futures article).
We're on the same page.
12:20 AM, February 22, 2006
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