Water Futures - Councillors try to vote themselves out of office ...

Desperate tactics from desperate people - with the lies starting all over again. Beattie wants to take our dams - it's better to drink our own recycled water so Beattie won't take our dams. What rubbish.

The real difficulty for Cr Englart and others is - how do you submit a funding application for a fundamentally flawed recycled water proposal when everyone now knows it is fundamentally flawed?

Will the Council show the real cost this time - likely to be $200-300 million?

Where will the Council say the RO waste stream will go this time?

Even if the Federal government ignored the July 2006 referendum result, how will the Council satisfy the other funding conditions which are likely to apply this time? (Given PM Howard's current mood, he's likely to fund another referendum.)

How will the remainder of the project be funded, given that the State government won't provide funding?

All in all - another abominable waste of Toowoomba ratepayers' money.

What will the voters think in March 2008?

Excerpt from the Chronicle (annotated):

Recycled water plan back in the pipeline

10 August 2007

Toowoomba City Council is initiating plans to prepare another submission for Federal Government funds to build a stand-alone recycling plant to treat water for drinking.

Cr Sue Englart said it was time to stop "tippy-toeing" around.

More than a year after the historic poll which rejected the plan, the controversial recycled water is destined for the city's supply when it links to the South East Queensland water grid.

And once water flows from Wivenhoe Dam to Perseverance Dam via a pipeline, the State intends assuming the city's water infrastructure. [This is incorrect - the State government has NOT said this.]

Councillors, with the exception of Snow Manners, agreed that if recycled water were to come through the taps, Toowoomba should have its own recycling plant and keep its assets.

Cr Englart's request came after she was set back on her haunches [a sight no-one would want to see!] by Member for Groom Ian Macfarlane. She told her colleagues this week she had asked of Mr Macfarlane what he could do about the city's water crisis.

"He said we haven't submitted any applications since the water poll last year," she said.

Heartened by his response, Cr Englart declared it was time to test the "influence" Mr Macfarlane maintained he had within his Cabinet.

The Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources, Mr Macfarlane and Labor candidate Chris Meibusch espoused their vision for the future of the electorate at an Urban Developers Institute of Australia breakfast.

Citizens Against Drinking Sewage (CADS) coordinator Rosemary Morley has put councillors on notice with a letter of protest.

Mrs Morley implored councillors to "put an immediate stop to this scaremongering campaign as this community is in enough upheaval because of the amalgamations debacle".

See - Councillors try to vote themselves out of office.