MP Turnbull doesn't read his own website ...

These commments are on Malcolm Turnbull's own website (20 April 2005):

Israel's Water Science

Turnbull:

.. the most impressive water facilities I saw in Israel were the enormous desalination plant at Ashkelon built by IDE, Israel’s leading desalination corporation, and Makorot’s sewage reclamation plant at Shaf Dan."

While at Ashkelon I met with Avshalom Felber, the CEO of IDE Technologies, and Fredi Lokiec, the Marketing Manager. Their new reverse osmosis desalination plant will produce 100 billion litres (100 million cubic metres) of fresh potable water every year.

The water is drawn from the Mediterranean and then pretreated through sandbed filters before being forced through a vast array of membrane filters. The pretreatement of the water before it hits the membranes is vital. Membrane filters are very sensitive to organic matter.

They told me that the alternative to reverse osmosis (distillation) requires twice as much power, but the water needs less preparation. Accordingly the trade off between R/O and distillation is between lower energy requirements but a more complex process for R/O versus a higher energy requirement but a much simpler process for distillation.

Nelly Icekson-Tal is the manager of the Dan Region Sewage Reclamation Plant. It recycles about a third of Israel’s sewage and produces 125 billion litres of recycled water each year. This water can be drunk, but is in fact used only for agriculture. Throughout Israel you can see red pipes which carry this recycled water for agriculture and irrigation (the blue ones carry the potable water for human consumption).

The sewage plant is a typical facility of its kind with a twist: the tertiary stage of treatment is effected by allowing the water to settle into the vast sand beds around the facility. After an average of nine months moving through the sand it is pumped out. The location of pumps ensures the recycled water does not mix with the fresh water aquifers running through the sand. The whole plant is only 45 hectares.

See- MP Turnbull website.

Before lecturing Toowoomba on why it needs to follow Israel's example, perhaps he should check what exactly is Israel's example ...