Sewage news round up ...

From today's Chronicle:

- Toowoomba City Council will hold a meeting at 3.00pm on 21 April to look at the nuts and bolts of the recycled sewage referendum. The agenda will focus on who will write the 1000 word outlines for the Yes and No case [who decided on 1000 words?] and the actual wording of the question.

Mayor Thorley says in relation to costs [remember that 2% rate increase threat?] - "We'll have to look at the budget where there is money, where we can access money or whatever - we have no idea how much is needed at this stage". [But you were threatening to increase rates by 2% anyway.]

Mayor Thorley also said: "At the end of the day, the one question we have is: Are we offering pure water?"

The answer is clearly NO.

- interesting Letter to the Editor from LS who wants to sue anyone who votes NO [well those who said so publicly anyway] because all residential and commercial real estate in Toowoomba will suffer severe losses in market value if not becoming worthless overnight. [The sky will probably fall as well!]

If anything, a Yes vote which leads to Toowoomba becoming the ONLY place in Australia where its residents are expected to drink water containing at least 25% recycled sewage could have an interesting impact on long-term property prices.

- another Letter to the Editor from BE who states: "It's astonishing that we have an extremely serious water crisis and yet some councillors, including Cr Thorley, appear to have a "couldn't care less" attitude [including their Japan/Korea trip]. The only ones who appear to have common sense are Crs Beer, Shelton and Barron. Sensibly they removed their support for Water Futures months ago."

- and a Letter to the Editor from PC at Kingsthorpe who says "we were sent the [$41,000] Waterwise book but then told by Di Thorley that we are not even allowed to vote. We are entitled to an opinion an a vote."

The letter goes on to say "Just because we may not live in Di's back yard [not sure you'd want to!] should not rob us of our say." "Will we just be shut out into the dark because we prefer to live out of Toowoomba? Get over yourself, Mayor Thorley, you aren't the queen of the Darling Downs." [No, but she's captain of the HMAS Toowoomba!] "You had your chance of fixing the problem with pipes from Wivenhoe and you blew it."

Just another day in paradise ...