Waste water pipeline a last ditch measure: Beattie ...

... but not for Toowoomba.

From ABC News:

Waste water pipeline a last ditch measure: Beattie

2 June 2006

The Queensland Government says the Opposition is trying to alarm south-east Queensland residents about a radical plan to pipe waste water into Wivenhoe Dam.

Premier Peter Beattie says any plan to pipe waste water into Wivenhoe Dam would be a desperate measure after years of no rain.

The Opposition wants the Government to rule out the scheme.

Mr Beattie says a waste water pipeline is being built for the Tarong Power Station and it would be possible to send it into the dam as well.

But he says that is not Government policy.

"The only way that that would be used if we had an armageddon-type situation and it never rained again and we had to use recycled water because it never rained again - which of course it will," he said.

"Then we would only do that if there was full public debate and full public consultation.

"So are we going to do this? The answer is no."

Opposition leader Lawrence Springborg says such a situation is more than possible.

"This Government is actually looking at a proposition to do it within the next 12 to 18 months," he said.

"The armageddon is very close because Peter Beattie has caused the armageddon."

He says the move would be even more unpopular than the proposed Mary River dam near Gympie.

"People would absolutely hate this more than the Traveston idea," he said.

"It concerns us greatly that the Government is actively considering this, that there are secret plans, and my call on Peter Beattie today is to 'fess up, release those documents."

Source - ABC News - Waste water pipeline a last ditch measure: Beattie.


Seems as though Armageddon must have already come to Toowoomba with Mayor Thorley's ill-conceived recycled sewage plan.

It's interesting that Premier Beattie says that any recycled sewage project would only occur if "there was full public debate and full public consultation", things absent from the Toowoomba proposals.