TCC and 4350water go head to head ...

Always interesting to see who wanders onto the 4350water blog and leaves comments.

As you read through the questions and the responses, Mr Flanagan's view of the blame game becomes quite clear. He accepts absolutely no responsibility for the Toowoomba City Council's failed Water Futures campaign. It was those rotten No campaigners who spoiled the party.

So it must have been the No campaigners who voted to give the Yes case $460,000 to squander on the Yes campaign.

It must have been the No campaigners who cobbled together the NWC application in closed door meetings.

It must have been the No campaigners who wrote the referendum question.

It must have been the No campaigners who published the Water Book showing nothing got through the membranes.

It must have been the No campaigners who told people that the coal seam gas water was carcinogenic and implied that an RO plant couldn't clean the water - only to see Dalby get State and Federal funding to use gas water for their town water supply.

It must have been the No campaigners threatening people if they weren't going to vote Yes.

It must have been the No campaigners going into schools with Waterwise Wendy to scare the children.

It must have been the No campaigners who wrote, published and aired the Yes campaign ads.

It must have been the No campaigners who wanted to march the children through the streets.

It must have been the No campaigners who thought pizza, balloons and movie tickets were a winning strategy.

Etc etc etc.

Question 1:

When did you commence working on a strategy to introduce potable reuse into Toowoomba?

KF: Initially I started thinking about the possibility in November 2004 on a trip to the Hunter Valley to see how mines are supplied with water from treatment plants. I was further motivated to investiagte further in December 2004 when DNRM&W advised of our reduced yielsd.

4350water: Given that Toowoomba City Council was discussing potable reuse with consultants as early as 1996, it seems unlikely that Council wasn't considering the issue until 2004.

Question 2:

Why was this not disclosed to the public at that time?

KF: Simple it was still being developed . The National Water Commission Guidelines for funding were not released until April 2005 and it took until June 2005 to develope the strategy . It was developed with the concurrence of all members of council and was released to the public in the launch by Member for Groom Hon Ian Macfarlane in the first week of July 2005.

4350water: The bigger question is - with such a well developed strategy to introduce potable reuse to Toowoomba, why were the voters not told of this prior to the 2004 Toowoomba City Council election? Why wait until after the election?

Question 3:

Prior to the public announcement, what was the nature of the discussions between Council representatives and CH2M Hill?

KF: Prior to the public release CH2MHill were engaged to carry out feasibility studies and costings of some of the treatment componants. Other consultants such as Arup Water, Tyco Water, GHD, CSIRO and 4 site natural solutions were also engaged , but any reference to them does not assist you with portraying CH2MHill as the bogey in your conspiracy theories.

4350water: It doesn't aid conspiracy theories one way or the other to ask - what were the nature of those discussions? Were any of the advisers interested in using Toowoomba as the test case for potable reuse plants elsewhere in Australia? If not, why would it be necessary to build an edutainment centre?

Question 4:

Why did the Toowoomba City Council resist releasing the NWC funding application?

KF: Did we? you got what you wanted via the FOI process.

4350water: The Toowoomba City Council did drag its heels as much as possible - it was an extremely silly move as it only made the No campaigners more determined to get hold of it and see what the Council wanted to hide. Incidentally, this was the first that people knew that 30 mgs/l TDS got through the membranes. It was not disclosed by the Toowoomba City Council prior to this time.

Question 5:

Why has the Toowoomba City Council been unable to produce the hydrology report that it used as the basis for justifying that Toowoomba needed a recycled water plant and for requesting federal funding?

KF: The DNRW carried out the review and advised of our revised yield in Dec 04. In all our presentations we advised of the DNRW advice and further commented that the DNRW were yet to release the repot. The did finally release a draft in July 2006 and the report was presented to Council ( Public Document) in Nov 2006. It is draft because the current drought is the critical drought in the review and until the drought ends the yield has the potential to change further. Having said that the advice given verbally in Dec 2004 has not changed in the july 06 draft.

4350water: Toowoomba City Council made a federal government funding application on the basis of a document which did not exist. You can try to dress it up as 'verbal advice' (perhaps a chat down the pub over dam levels) or 'draft reports' but there was no report, there is no report and it was silly to claim otherwise in the NWC funding application.

Question 6:

Why were the costings for the Water Futures project never independently assessed? Not the other options - the Water Futures costings. The Parsons Brinkerhoff report assumed the Council's figures were correct and just added 10% on top for cost increases. That's not an assessment.

KF: Our estimates were verified By the National Water Commission who were happy to approve the funding based on our submission . The so called other options we bandied about by the no case with out any costings and it was only by TCC and State Governments actions that these other options were costed.

4350water: Same question - why were the Water Futures project costings never independently assessed? Here's a thought - they weren't independently assessed because it would have clearly shown that Water Futures wasn't the cheapest option - much of the Toowoomba City Council's advertising focused on Water Futures being cheaper than the other options. It never was and the project would have saddled Toowoomba with an unsustainable debt burden. That would have been the Yes campaigners' legacy.

Question 7:

Why did the Toowoomba City Council maintain that nothing could get through the RO membranes, even using diagrams in promotional material showing this - when this was not correct?

KF: We advised that 30 ppm of total Dissolved Salts could pass the RO membrane and that is why we added the Advanced oxidation and UV disinfection as additional barriers. Multi barrier system to ensure the purity of the product But heck I will never convince you lot.

4350water: The misleading information on TDS first came to light once the NWC funding application was released. Toowoomba City Council released its Water Book with the misleading diagram and was then forced to backflip and admit that not everything was stopped by the membranes. It was an amateurish mistake that would never have been made if Council had actually looked at the NEWater video rather than focusing on their brochures.

Question 8:

Why does the Toowoomba City Council think that they can build a recycled water plant for $68 million when the three SEQ recycled water plants and associated pipelines (although larger) will cost around $2 billion?

KF: We dont.Its your action that have prevented that . If we would have received the funding in Sept 2005 as Minister Macfarlane was sure to advise us at the launch in july 05,we would have recieved extremely competitive tenders and would have delivered the project by august this year. The market today is inflated markedly by the urgency to supply water infrastructure projects in SEQ and the rest of Australia. The no case proponants have ensured that what ever solution awaits Toowoomba it is going to at a much greater cost.

4350water: So, the Toowoomba City Council is now admitting it cannot build a recycled water plant for $68 million? Perhaps you should tell some of the Councillors this startling admission. The point about 'competitive tenders' is interesting. In the original documentation for the Wetalla expansion, the CH2M Hill consortium had an option to build the Water Futures plant. This was subsequently dropped. Seems like at one point there was to be no competitive tender process for the Water Futures plant. Why the backflip?

Question 9:

Why did the Toowoomba City Council not make any statement that Water Futures was not a solution to the drought until it was reported in the Chronicle in March 2006, 8 months after the project was announced?

KF: Water Futures was never a drought solution . Any statements that it was was a fabrication of the no case

4350water: So the No campaigners were responsible for writing and publishing the Yes campaign ads?

Question 10:

Why do you call the Water Facts group a 'sham' when it was in fact skewed towards the Yes campaign?

KF: Clearly it was a sham. Alan Kleinschmidt and I only became members after protesting about the bias. The original membership was Doug Harland, Ian Andersen,Rod Scott,Paul Rigby,Ken Murphy,Snow Manners, Cr Lyle Shelton, Peter Marks,John McVeigh, Cr Ian Orford,Terry Kirkland,Ron Barclay and Clive Berghofer. Hardly the original makeup can be classed as pro Water Futures.

4350water: The public statements made by the Water Facts group were usually skewed towards the Yes case. But perhaps the 'advertorial' Chronicle shares some responsibility for that.

Question 11:

Was the outgoing Mayor's tactic of using radio rather than print media to claim 70% support for the recycled water project a planned strategy?

KF: I dont know maybe you should ask her.

4350water: Perhaps if the question is reframed. Was it Toowoomba City Council policy to have the outgoing Mayor use radio rather than print media for her claims of 70% support?

Question 12:

Where did the Toowoomba City Council propose to send the RO waste stream, given that it was never likely that New Acland Coal wanted the waste stream? 'Cool on the idea' was their response.

KF: What makes you think that Acland Coal does not want our effluent? Dont give me the excuse that they are taking 150 ML/yr from Oakey and that will underpin their expansion

4350water: Perhaps the fact that they never made a public statement in support of the project or confirmed that they would take the RO waste stream. It seemed like they wanted something in the form of recycled water but not the RO waste stream the Council wanted to dump on them. In the private sector, a bankable feasibility study for a project would require a contractual commitment from a party who was so crucial to the project's success. Perhaps government projects go along on 'a wing and a prayer'. The RO waste stream was a significant flaw in the plan - in the NWC funding application, CH2M Hill even raised the possibility of piping it to the sea - like Singapore.

Question 13:

Why did the Toowoomba City Council try to get the State government to shut down blogs reporting on the Toowoomba water debate in April 2006 when neither the Council nor the State government had the legal right to do so? What justification was there for harassing particular blogs in an attempt to stifle political debate? Did the Council intend to shut down every chatroom where someone mentioned the Toowoomba water debate?

KF: Thats news to me. Did we do that? Maybe you are a little paranoid!!

4350water: Another attempt to reinvent history. There was an attempt by the Local Government Minister's office to sideline blogs focusing on the No campaign. Perhaps they came up with this idea all by themselves.

Question 14:

Why would you think that any legal proceedings would not involve a discussion of the implied constitutional freedom of political communication?

KF: See my comment to anonymous john earlier. (my point is not about taking any action against bloggs per se ,it relates to legal action that is open when a person defams another person by comments attributed to them in other forms of media where names have to be disclosed.)

4350water: Should you feel that any particular comment about you in a blog article on the 4350water blog goes beyond 'fair comment', it will be immediately reviewed and, if appropriate, amended.

Read the other comments here - The TCC, 4350water et al discussion.

If the Council wants to futher respond, the responses will be included in this post ...