NZ media: NZ prof tells Aussies how to drink sewage ...

Even in New Zealand, they think it's a joke!

Excerpt from stuff.co.nz:

NZ prof tells Aussies how to drink sewage

18 January 2007

A Hamilton academic is set to tell Queenslanders how to go about drinking their own sewage.

David Hamilton of Waikato University, an environmental expert, is on a panel advising the Queensland Government on technical issues associated with recycling sewage, the Telegraph newspaper reports in Sydney.

Prominent politicians and water experts have supported using recycled effluent as drinking water as catchments hit record lows in the current drought.

Queensland residents in the rural city of Toowoomba last July rejected proposals to recycle their effluent, despite facing severe water restrictions.

Now more than 1.7 million residents in south-east Queensland from the Gold Coast to Toowoomba will vote in March 17 referendum on whether recycled water should be part of their drinking water.

Chaired by the senior deputy vice chancellor of Queensland University, Professor Paul Greenfield, the panel of nine experts, is expected to be paid $A120,000 ($NZ136,674), much of it in travel expenses.

...

Even if the referendum is defeated, the nine-member panel will remain, Queensland Water Commissioner Elizabeth Nosworthy said.

"The panel is here because the Government has already said that in an emergency. . . we will use recycled water irrespective of the plebiscite, so we have to work on the assumption there may be occasions when recycled water is used, whether or not there is a `yes' vote," she said.

...

The Age newspaper reported that drinking recycled water was opposed by most Australians, with nearly half believing it would contain human waste and 70 per cent equating it with purified sewage.

A survey of 1000 Australians' perceptions of recycled and desalinated water showed that almost 30 per cent thought recycled water was "disgusting" and one in four believed it stained the washing. Only 11 per cent said they would be very likely to use it for drinking.

See - NZ prof tells Aussies how to drink sewage.