SEQ recycled water - Bligh government finally admits to recycling industrial waste for human consumption ...

Exceprt from the Australian:

U-turn on recycled industrial waste

6 November 2008

The Queensland Water Commission has been forced to back down on a claim that industrial waste would not be recycled as drinking water for the state's southeast.

The commission yesterday admitted that industrial waste would account for 12 per cent of recycled water, but insisted it would still be safe to drink.

Industrial contaminants dumped into the sewerage system by businesses will not be separated from effluent before it is treated and pumped into the Wivenhoe Dam, Brisbane's main water source, early next year.

Contaminants to be recycled are understood to include oil, metals and food-processing chemicals.

Recycled water will account for between 10 per cent and 25 per cent of the water supply for the 2.6 million residents of southeast Queensland under a plan that has divided health and water experts.

Queensland Water Commission chief executive John Bradley told The Australian last week that industrial wastes would not be recycled.

"The removal of industrial and other unwanted wastes is the first barrier in the seven-step purification process to make the water safe," Mr Bradley said.

He said sewage would be the sole source of recycled water, "supplemented at times by stormwater runoff".

Queenslanders for Safe Water chairwoman Merilyn Haines said this was incorrect.

"Hospital and industrial waste enter the sewerage system because hospitals and industrial areas do not have separate reticulation systems," Ms Haines said.

In a clarifying statement in response, Mr Bradley said the commission had always described the first barrier as being "existing trade waste controls which prevent hazardous material" entering the sewerage system. Mr Bradley said trade waste included industrial and hospital discharges and it made up 12 per cent of sewage inflows in the Brisbane region.

He said the largest industries with approval to discharge wastes to the sewerage system were food manufacturers who had a "light contaminant load".

"Sewage inflows are closely analysed to assess the risk of chemicals of concern," Mr Bradley said.

"The existing waste water treatment plants are already effective in removing 99 per cent of such chemicals before the next three barriers of micro-filtration, reverse osmosis and advanced oxidation."

Mr Bradley said world-class technology would eliminate all traces of trade waste to produce drinking-quality water of the highest standard.

"This technology, used in a number of other places around the world, has been the subject of extensive testing which confirms its effectiveness in the removal of both biological and chemical contaminants."

Australian National University microbiologist Peter Collignon said the overseas analogies used by the commission were inappropriate.

Professor Collignon said Singapore, for instance, had been careful not to use industrial wastes in its recycled water program, using only effluent from residential areas.

He said industrial wastes were of concern because in addition to posing a health risk, they could damage or foul filtration membranes in the water purification process.

National guidelines for recycled water, which have been adopted by the Queensland authorities, say industrial waste discharges to sewers "pose a particular risk to the integrity of the recycled water system".

Under the guidelines, water utilities need to be able to deny acceptance of trade waste, impose restrictions and enforce requirements on waste generators to install pretreatment facilities.

See - Finally the QWC discloses some of its secrets.

"Sewage inflows are closely analysed to assess the risk of chemicals of concern."

What a joke.

Two days ago Qld Health admitted they had no idea what hospital waste was poured down the sewers.

So the QWC misinformation game continues.

Just remember - Barrier 1 doesn't exist (other than in the minds of the QWC) ...