SEQ - Recycled water still on cards within six months ...

Excerpt from Courier Mail:

Recycled water still on cards within six months

27 November 2008

Southeast Queensland residents could be drinking recycled water within six months, following advice from the Queensland Water Commission.

The commission advised the State Government that recycled water should be added to supplies when dam levels fall to 40 per cent.

The 40 per cent trigger point is identical to the one given to the Government early last year despite the fact average household water use has fallen significantly.

Premier Anna Bligh had given strong indications that the trigger level should drop after she ditched her Government's plans for unfettered use of recycled water. Dam levels are hovering at 46 per cent and would hit 40 per cent by May without significant summer rain.

Infrastructure Minister Paul Lucas last night said the region had positive prospects of summer rain.

Mr Lucas would not speculate on when recycled water would be added.

"That's not for me, I'm not a scientist," he said.

The Government will release the QWC's advice in Parliament today while the commission will now develop a trigger point for when to switch the recycled water tap off. Mr Lucas denied the QWC had defied the Premier, saying the commission had offered independent advice and that was accepted by the Government.

"This is about understanding that the people, a number of them, have expressed concerns about purified recycled water," Mr Lucas said.

"The Government is listening to that.

"It is not in relation to the science, it is in relation to community concerns, we are listening to that. That is about being a listening government."

Earlier, Ms Bligh conceded many industries were likely to snub recycled water because it was too expensive or bad for business.

"In many cases it is simply not economic," she said.

"In other cases it depends on the nature of the industry - some of the food producing industries for example, are less likely, I think, to be people who would want to sign up."

However, Ms Bligh believed over the next 20 years more industries would be attracted to recycling.

Opposition Leader Lawrence Springborg claimed the Government's water policy was an "utter shambles" but refused to name the level dams would have to fall to for his own emergency recycled water plan to be triggered.

"I am not even getting into trigger points because we have got that there as an absolute last resort only," he said.

Mr Springborg also said if elected he would consider scrapping the QWC because he claimed the authority had failed to act independently.

See - Recycled water still on cards within six months.

If there is one thing that the QWC is not - it's the term 'independent'.

And what is Anna Bligh smoking?

She thinks the food industries won't want recycled water but she wants to put it into Wivenhoe Dam where it will make its way into most food industries in SEQ ...