Prof Collignon on SEQ's recycled water plans ...

Excerpt from Stateline:

Water Woes

22 February 2008
...

JOHN TAYLOR: If Brisbane and its surrounds have dodged a bullet for now, it's because of people like the Turpins. And from October, another element being added to the mix is water recycled from sewage. From later this year it'll be flowing into the drinking supply.

DALLAS TURPIN, BRISBANE RESIDENT: I think it will be quite okay to use because they’re not going to give us something that hasn’t been proved to be quite good quality.

JOHN TAYLOR: But not everyone else is so sure.

PROFESSOR PETER COLLIGNON, MICROBIOLOGIST: I think you do need to be careful. One of the fundamental huge benefits that we had with Public Health worldwide, but particularly in Australia was keeping human waste and sewage material out of our water supply.

JOHN TAYLOR: Professor Peter Collginon is an infectious disease expert at the Australian National University. He says connecting recycled water to the drinking supply is one thing but when there's enough water, the pipe should be turned off.

PROFESSOR PETER COLLIGNON: We're adding an extra level of risk to our population. That if you don't have to do it you are better avoiding. There may be certain circumstances or certain times. I mean if you do actually have no water, you may have no option but to do this. But my view is you should do this only as almost a last resort.

JOHN TAYLOR: But a lot of money has gone into recycled water and the Water Commission says it's a safe and reliable supplement to supply. And when it's in, it's in with only some tweaking of how much is to be added.

JOHN BRADLEY: Now what we will be doing if we were getting dams that were increasing in their volume would be looking at opportunities to supply water to other users so there might be some opportunity for rural users to make greater use of water supplies at that time or alternatively we might be able to back off a bit the production of those purified recycled water or desalination plants.

See - SEQ recycled water plans.

Whatever happened to a testing period for the recycled water?

In Toowoomba's case, the recycled water was to be quarantined in Cooby Dam and tested by the CSIRO for 3-5 Years.

Seems Brisbane gets no testing period at all.

It really is a one-shot deal - if the Qld government gets it wrong, they're going to be in all sorts of trouble ...