Mayor Thorley's comments at Water 06 conference ...

Summary of Mayor Thorley's comments at the recent Water 06 conference in Brisbane (annotated):

Mayor Di Thorley gave an impassioned speech in support of indirect potable reuse and said that this was the only sustainable solution to Toowoomba’s water supply crisis.

[The Toowoomba City Council refuses to have the other water source options independently assessed.]

All other solutions had been considered and dismissed because they were either not economically or environmentally viable or they only provided short-term stop gaps.

[The Council's rather self-serving assessment is based on some fairly "rubbery" figures. The Water Futures project is not a long-term solution to Toowoomba's water source issues.]

She said that there is now a sense of urgency about water in Toowoomba as they have been in water restrictions since 1992. There is substantial population growth so that even if it poured with rain tomorrow there would only be about two years supply and on current projections there will be no water in the dam by December 2007.

[Nonsense - if sufficient rain fell to fill the dams, there would be more than two years' supply - at 23% dam levels plus bore water, there is at least 2 years' supply.]

In Toowoomba they are living off their water ‘credit card’ and the community is aware of the looming crisis and everyone has an opinion from armchair commentators to politicians to senior scientists.

Each community has to consider recycling options that are particular to that community and in Toowoomba this means indirect potable reuse, but the challenge is to overcome the ‘yuk’ factor and this means education rather than consultation.

[Why does it mean indirect potable use for Toowoomba - this is a unilateral decision by the Toowoomba City Council without consulting the community. Why is it necessary to "educate" the population rather than consulting them. The Councillors were elected to represent the people not to educate them.]

Toowoomba has exhausted all its demand management options and daily per capita use is just 240L and for many places this kind of level is a future goal not a current reality.

[The Toowoomba City Council needs to examine all water source options for Toowoomba rather than maintaining a hell-bent attitude to forcing Toowoomba residents to drink recycled sewage.]

Now, more than ever, political courage is needed ‘a wishbone has never taken the place of a backbone’.

[Mayor Thorley often falls back on the political backbone rhetoric as a justification for forcing her controversial recycled sewage project onto an unwilling community.]

See - Thorley committed to the bitter end.