The (not so) secret Brisbane toilet-to-tap plan ...

... forcing Brisbane residents to drink recycled water on a 'toilet-to-tap scheme' scale done nowhere else in the world while using dam water supplies for the power stations.

Queensland - the Smart State!

And nobody wants to own up to the idea.

Excerpt from the Courier Mail:

Recycled water 'option' revealed

18 May 2007

Brisbane residents could end up using more recycled water than first thought under an emergency plan mooted by the Queensland Water Commission.

The move is an option if authorities are forced to shorten the proposed western corridor pipeline to Wivenhoe Dam.

Under the current proposal, the 80 km pipeline would release fully treated recycled water from the Bundamba Advanced Water Treatment Plant into the top of Wivenhoe.

However, if the pipeline cannot be completed by the deadline – currently April next year – the commission has considered a shorter pipeline releasing the recycled water into Mount Crosby Weir near Karana Downs, 60km south-east of Wivenhoe.

This means that the recycled water would not be diluted by mixing with fresh water in the Wivenhoe Dam.

The recycled water would also not be available to the Tarong Power Station which sources its water from Wivenhoe. The power station already is at 30 percent capacity because of a lack of water to drive its turbines.

Local government sources today confirmed that the shorter pipeline option had been revealed by water commission staff earlier this year.

Local Government Association executive director Greg Hallam said Water Commission staff had described the idea of a Mt Crosby diversion as “an option’’ when quizzed about it at a conference in February attended by delegates from southeast Queensland councils.

He said the conference forum was told the Mt Crosby proposal had been considered "at an engineering level".

"The question was put at a forum at the convention centre," Mr Hallam said.

Mr Hallam said the staff were asked whether the plan was an option. “They said 'Yes'," Mr Hallam said. “It was definitely talked about and they said ‘Yes'."

However, the office of Deputy Premier Anna Bligh has vehemently denied there is any plan whatsoever to divert treated recycled water to Mt Crosby Reservoir.

An official said that pipes had already been laid close to Wivenhoe as proof the government wants the pipeline to extend the full distance – 80km - through the towns of Borralon, Lowood, Coominya, and Esk to Caboonbah near the top of Lake Wivenhoe.

The Queensland Water Commission has been invited to respond to Mr Hallam's remarks.

See - Beattie to force toilet to tap scheme on Brisbane.

Also see - Water plan wasn't ours.