Breaking news: guy who runs theatre says drink recycled sewage ...

Here's some really surprising news that's bound to make you leapt for your bottle of NEWater and guzzle it down.

The guy who runs the Empire Theatre in Toowoomba, Peter Swannell, says Perth's plans to conduct a recycle water experiment mean that people in Toowoomba should drink recycled sewage water.

See - Theatre guy advocates recycled water.

No real surprise as he was appointed to Mayor 'drink it or you can buy bottled water' Thorley's disbanded Water Futures Advisory Panel. You remember - the Panel which strangely disappeared once the Toowoomba referendum was announced.

What Mr Swannell fails to state in the article is that authorities in Western Australia are embarking on a 3 year experiment to see if it is possible to safely recycle water into one of Perth's aquifers, water which may take "years, possibly decades before anyone was drinking a molecule of water that had been treated and reinjected into the aquifer".

See - SMH - Perth recycled water experiment.

Should the 3 year experiment not be successful, the project would be scrapped.

And it seems community acceptance is crucial:

"[A] three-year study into health guidelines for safe levels of potentially harmful chemicals in sewage, and ensuring that treatment processes could get rid of contaminants, would be completed before the Water Corporation trial began in 2009.

The study would review all the chemicals that might be found in sewage, including the three most potent endocrine disrupters, which were found in the contraceptive pill and were likely to be present in waste water after passing through women's urine.

The Water Corporation hopes to use the trial to expand the project to recycle about 30 gigalitres of waste water a year by pumping the treated effluent into the Gnangara mound, but has promised community support will be crucial."

See - The Age - Perth authorities calm fears.

Interesting how WA is conducting experiments but Premier Beattie seems hell-bent on dumping recycled sewage into Wivenhoe Dam as soon as possible.

Mr Swannell also fails to mention that Perth now has one of the largest desalination plants in the world.

But he wouldn't mention that, would he?

And it's not even real news. 4350water reported on this over a year ago:

See - WA to investigate things Toowoomba City Council already knows.

Perhaps we are witnessing the start of Toowoomba City Council's SEQ referendum strategy. Use Mr Swannell as the public face of the Yes campaign this time around. Given that he is on the Council's payroll running the Empire Theatre, would his time spent spruiking the Yes case be considered work-related? Is that what the ratepayers of Toowoomba are paying him to do ...