"Kitchen Table" talk relies on unseen report ...

Excerpt from today's Chronicle (annotated) on Toowoomba City Council's so-called "kitchen table" talks used to try to convince a sceptical public to accept the Mayor's controversial recycled sewage project:

11 May 2006

To any community group that requests it, Toowoomba City Council will conduct "Kitchen Table" talks about the safety of drinking recycled sewage and the necessity of its Water Future program.

The presentation compares other options to council's preferred recycling scenario.

Council's manager of Laboratory Services, Alan Kleinschmidt, made his pitch to Toowoomba QCWA members yesterday with a talk and PowerPoint presentation outlining Water Futures.

The Chronicle asked three of those members before the presentation how they intended to vote – one indicated a Yes vote while two indicated they would vote No.

[Presumably the PowerPoint presentation has now been modified to show that it is not only water which passes through the membranes.]

At the conclusion of the presentation they were asked if the presentation had changed their views. All three had not changed their views or their voting intention.

Mr Kleinschmidt said it would be three to five years before potable water from the scheme would flow to users and outlined council's interim plan to maintain supplies during the current drought.

Questions from the floor following his presentation focused on alternatives to recycling for drinking and on water availability rather than queries about the health and safety of the water its proposed consumers would be drinking.

[Mr Kleinschmidt should discuss why Council will continue to water the parks and gardens with bore water while asking Toowoomba residents to drink recycled sewage at a 25-29% mix not done anywhere else in the world.]

In his presentation, Mr Kleinschmidt said that in December 2004 the State Government's Department of Natural Resources and Mines reviewed its assessment of the amount of water the Toowoomba catchment could safely produce.

In light of growth and a closer study of historical rainfall records, the review concluded Toowoomba's catchment had in fact exceeded its safe yield in 1998, necessitating investigation of another water supply.

[While Council is happy to talk about this report, it is apparently unable to produce it. As this document forms the basis for needing to look at alternate water sources, anyone attending a "kitchen table" talk should request Council bring the document to the meeting.]

After assessing the alternative sources and determining drinking properly treated effluent was safe, council had decided on the Water Futures program, Mr Kleinschmidt said, adding that the seven-barrier treatment proposed would be independently audited.

"The audit certifies we met the standard at the start. The third party auditor comes back every six months and audits us to check we are doing what we said we planned we would do," he said.

Mr Kleinschmidt said tiny levels of organic chemicals would possibly be left in the water after the seven-barrier treatment, but at levels much lower than those that would harm health.

[At least Council is now admitting that organic chemicals get through the process - something they chose not to tell the public until faced with the contents of the NWC application obtained under a FOI request. The debate continues over whether the chemical levels would be harmful and the risk of combinations of chemicals.]

See - Kitchen table discussions.

Coming soon - why Mayor Thorley's $460,000 advertising campaign will fail.