Taken for fools on effluent ...

From the Courier Mail:

'Taken for fools' on effluent

by Amanda Gearing

16 May 2006

Toowoomba residents are being treated like fools on the hill by Premier Peter Beattie because he is giving them no option but to drink recycled effluent while coastal residents get new dams, a Toowoomba city councillor says.

Outspoken councillor Lyle Shelton said: "If Peter Beattie will drink recycled sewage water at his Brisbane home, I'll happily drink it at my place."

Cr Shelton was one of three local councillors who withdrew their support for Mayor Dianne Thorley's controversial world-first scheme to add 5000Ml per year of recycled effluent, to make up a quarter of the city's drinking water.

Local Federal Member for Groom Ian Macfarlane and local state members Mike Horan, Stuart Copeland and Ray Hopper also withdrew support for the sewage-to-tap recycling proposal.

Opponents claim cheaper, safer options are being ignored including an offer of 10,000Ml/year from gasfields west of the city and 28,000Ml/year of drinking-quality bore water currently being used for irrigating cotton crops.

Toowoomba is part of the Condamine catchment, which uses 280,000Ml of surface and underground water a year for agriculture and town supplies.

Toowoomba city uses 15,000Ml of water a year, almost all from the neighbouring Moreton catchment where its two major dams are situated.

But Mr Beattie has backed Toowoomba City Council's recycling proposal as the first experiment in Australia to return recycled sewage into drinking water supplies which could be extended around the state.

In a letter to Cr Thorley, Mr Beattie said: "The results of this innovative pilot program will allow for the evaluation of indirect water recycling as an alternative water supply option throughout Queensland."

Cr Shelton said Mr Beattie was avoiding recycling sewage water for drinking in Brisbane and was proposing new dams despite strong community opposition.

"Maybe he knows something about the safety of recycled sewage for drinking that is being hidden from Toowoomba people," Cr Shelton said.

Cr Shelton said NSW Premier Morris Iemma had rejected recycled water for Sydney over unresolved health issues.

"We are being treated like fools up here on the hill."

See - the fools on the hill.


Any response, Mr Beattie ...