Recycled water - if it's so great why keep it a secret ...

Excerpt from the Courier Mail:

Secret water shocks

21 July 2007

A secret report for the Queensland Water Commission proposes turning sewage effluent into drinking water on a mass scale throughout the southeast.

The report says pumping treated effluent into dams, and the construction of a second desalination plant at Pimpama, south of Brisbane, would seem the only way to avoid exhausting future water supplies to the southeast corner.

It lists a number of towns and dams that would add recycled sewage effluent to drinking water in Brisbane and bayside towns, the Sunshine and Gold coasts and Toowoomba.

A separate report to the commission outlines savage new water restrictions under levels 6 and 7 that will hit nurserymen, market gardeners, turf farmers and developers especially hard.

And total outdoor water bans would hit homeowners in new estates trying to establish gardens.

There would be a ban on topping up swimming pools and spas. Sports clubs would be hit with heavy restrictions on watering grounds.

It’s a story the water commission does not want you to read.

It fought my attempts to search for the documents under the Freedom of Information laws. This was a gross form of censorship against the spirit of the laws.

Some of the documents were later released on appeal. But they arrived with dozens of pages blanked out.

A contingency plan by engineering firm Kellogg Brown and Root says: “Due to the requirement for climate independence, only saltwater desalination, or saltwater desalination coupled with indirect potable reuse, can be considered.”

The report is political dynamite, and will fuel debate that planning for water security was neglected by successive governments.

It also warns that the completion of the water grid will not necessarily guarantee water security long-term.

An accompanying chart has recycled effluent returning to dams from 2011.

By 2056, the “contingency volume” required by the SEQ region will increase to 472,800 megalitres a year, it says.

It says Wivenhoe Dam could be topped up with recycled effluent and that Toowoomba’s supplies will have to be bolstered with recycled sewage effluent from the Wetalla waste water treatment plant topping up the city’s Cooby Dam.

The report said there are other “opportunities” to top up dams with recycled sewage effluent, with Sandgate supplying North Pine Dam, Merrimac and Elanora plants supplying Hinze Dam, Noosaville supplying Lake Macdonald, and Cleveland and Capalaba treatment plants supplying Leslie Harrison Dam.

As well, waste from the Pine Rivers, Caboolture and Redcliffe sewage treatment plants could be returned to Lake Kurwongbah.

Ipswich waste water would go to Wivenhoe Dam.

It says waste water plants at Luggage Point, Gibson Island, Oxley, Wacol, Goodna, and Bundamba would also go to Wivenhoe and could also be used in the cooling towers at Swanbank and Tarong power stations.

Another report by Cardno Queensland also promotes recycled sewage as a “valuable alternative water resource”.

More than a million Queenslanders already drink recycled sewage effluent. This happens when treated effluent is released upstream from a number of dams.

The southeast corner has 66 sewage treatment plants capable of producing treated effluent in case of an emergency.

End.


In both the Toowoomba and Brisbane examples, it was necessary to use the Freedom of Information legislation to obtain government documentation on recycled water.

In Toowoomba's case, the Toowoomba City Council resisted the FOI request and dragged their heels on its release as long as possible. The same seems to be the case in Brisbane.

If it's such a great idea to have people drinking recycled water and 70-80% of people agree with it as Toowoomba's outgoing Mayor and Premier Beattie would have you believe, why the reluctance to release the documentation for the public to read?

Why is it necessary to blank out pages of a report on recycled water?

Is it a national security risk?

Why is it all such a great secret ...