Townsville buys back recycled water ...

... but not for drinking.

From ABC News:

Council agrees to buy recycled water for irrigation

19 July 2006

Townsville City Council has agreed to buy back recycled water not used by industry from the proposed Cleveland Bay Water Carbon Neutral Recycling Project to use for irrigation on gardens.

Townsville Mayor Tony Mooney says it makes sense to look to recycled water for irrigation.

Councillor Mooney says every drop of water spared from the Ross River Dam is precious.

"I've always said that some of that recycled water should be used to irrigate sporting fields like at the Murray sporting complex. We're currently using treated town water for that," he said.

"How dumb is it to suggest that we shouldn't be doing that?"

Councillor David Crisafulli says that ratepayers will be the ones to suffer from the arrangement.

"I want to fight this tooth and nail because there's no way we should be telling ratepayers, 'look, we could be buying water at X dollars but we're going to pay twice as much just to save some political face'," he said.

Source - ABC News - Council agrees to buy recycled water for irrigation.