Qld government fear - students will drink from toilets ...

Further indications that the Qld government has no clue about water management in SEQ.

Excerpt from the Courier Mail:

Schools' wasteful flushing

3 April 2007

Public schools in southeast Queensland are barred from using recycled water for toilets – with millions of litres of drinkable water flushed every day.

A Pine Rivers primary school, just north of Brisbane, had been told it cannot use its recycled-water pipeline for toilets, a local councillor said – even though the water was already used on playing fields.

It was feared that students might contaminate themselves by drinking the water out of the toilet, Cr Graeme Ashworth said.

"I still don't understand the logic," he said.

"I've heard of people getting their heads dunked in toilets, but they are certainly not ingesting it."

All toilet water was contaminated whether it was potable or not, he said.

Eatons Hill primary connected to a Pine Rivers treatment plant pipeline to use class B-plus recycled water to irrigate sporting fields.

But the state would not allow the school to use it to flush toilets because it had not been disinfected, Cr Ashworth said.

Education Minister Rod Welford said the department was talking to councils about broader use of recycled water.

"Where councils can guarantee the safety of recycled water for use in toilets, we will look seriously at this option," he said.

Queensland Water Commission recycled water adviser Paul Greenfield said he understood concerns about tiny droplets of recycled water transporting disease, but a blanket ban was too strict without investigation.

"You need to look at the technology, and the monitoring," he said. "If the risk is low enough there's no reason why it shouldn't be used."

There are 465 public schools in southeast Queensland shires that will soon be going on to level 5 water restrictions.

About two million litres of water would be consumed if students, teachers and staff – about 200,000 people – flushed only once a day.

Redland Shire councillor Craig Ogilvie said it seemed a conservative estimate, based on a conversation he had had with a school official familiar with toilet water consumption at schools.

He could see no reason to prevent the use of recycled water in toilets. "It sounds like crazy bureaucrats covering their a - - - s," he said.

The Government is constructing a recycled water pipeline that will deliver more than 200 million litres of purified recycled water to power stations, industry and for household use.

Millions of litres of high-grade recycled water from city treatment plants are being dumped in the Brisbane River every day as officials wait for the pipeline to be finished in 2008.

See - Qld goverment fearful of students drinking from the toilet.

If it was 1 April, you would think it was an April Fools' Day joke ...