Recycled water concerns validated - Anna Bligh's SEQ recycled water Barrier 1 does NOT exist ...
Anna Bligh's recycled water project has been shown to be a farce.
The Queensland Water Commission have been shown to be, at best, completely incompetent and, at worst, grossly negligent.
For months, The Australian and the blogging world have known that Barrier 1 of Anna Bligh recycled water project - the barrier supposed to prevent hospital and trade waste entering the sewage system - is non-existent.
Anna Bligh and the QWC would show pretty slides which indicated that harmful hospital and trade waste could not enter the system.
Turns out it was just more Anna Bligh spin.
The Australian now reports that:
"An audit by Queensland Health has found deficiencies in the approvals for the disposal of wastes to the sewer in Brisbane's three biggest hospitals. A fourth, Ipswich Hospital, did not have an approval in place for its wastes."
Amazing given that the "Queensland Water Commission has repeatedly assured the public that all approvals were operating for the disposal of hospital wastes to the sewer".
Surely Anna Bligh wasn't planning to pump recycled water into Wivenhoe Dam without making sure that Barrier 1 existed?
Apparently so:
"The hospital approvals were faulty or non-existent at the time authorities planned to begin pumping recycled water to Brisbane's Wivenhoe Dam in February. The Government deferred the plan after The Australian reported concerns by microbiologists that the seven-stage screening process may not be adequate to prevent contamination."
Has Anna Bligh come clean now?
No - it's more coverups and secrecy from the Bligh administration:
"The Government refused to release the Queensland Health audit report yesterday."
Why would we be surprised.
At least someone within Qld Health was prepared to tell the truth:
"With recycled water on the way, this is the state of the management of hospital wastes. Nobody really knows what's being poured down the drains and it's not being monitored in any capacity."
Precisely.
See - The Australian - Checks deficient on hospital waste.
And this is what Anna Bligh's opponents have been saying all along:
Nobody really knows what's being poured down the drains and it's not being monitored in any capacity.
And yet still the Bligh government asks us to trust them on recycled water.
Recycled water will not be pumped into Wivenhoe Dam until combined 'dam levels' hit 40%.
A better approach would be to eliminate potable reuse - it is clear that the Bligh government has no idea what is being put into the sewers - so better leave the recycled water well away from SEQ's drinking water supply ...
posted by Concerned Ratepayer at 9:27 AM
3 Comments:
The Australian:
Checks deficient on hospital waste
Greg Roberts | April 07, 2009
HOSPITAL waste in southeast Queensland was to be recycled as drinking water without the necessary approvals in place to ensure the water was not contaminated.
An audit by Queensland Health has found deficiences in the approvals for the disposal of wastes to the sewer in Brisbane's three biggest hospitals. A fourth, Ipswich Hospital, did not have an approval in place for its wastes.
The Queensland Water Commission has repeatedly assured the public that all approvals were operating for the disposal of hospital wastes to the sewer.
The approvals were designed to ensure that contaminants such as blood and cancer chemicals were prevented from being added to the mix to be recycled as drinking water.
The hospital approvals were faulty or non-existent at the time authorities planned to begin pumping recycled water to Brisbane's Wivenhoe Dam in February. The Government deferred the plan after The Australian reported concerns by microbiologists that the seven-stage screening process may not be adequate to prevent contamination.
Premier Anna Bligh confirmed yesterday that the plan would proceed when dam levels dropped to 40 per cent; they are currently at 50 per cent.
The Government refused to release the Queensland Health audit report yesterday. However, a senior Queensland Health source said the audit raised serious concerns about the trade waste approval system at four major hospitals.
The audit covered Ipswich Hospital and, in Brisbane, the Prince Charles Hospital, Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital, and Princess Alexandra Hospital.
"Local councils are supposed to enforce these approvals but that has not been happening," the source said.
"Three hospitals did not have current trade waste contracts in place and one did not even have a trade waste approval.
"With recycled water on the way, this is the state of the management of hospital wastes. Nobody really knows what's being poured down the drains and it's not being monitored in any capacity."
Queensland Water Commission guidelines state that all hospitals must obtain a trade waste approval and have waste management plans in place. The guidelines say the safeguards would ensure contaminants such as unused pharmaceuticals, clinical waste, cytotoxic waste from cancer treatment, and radioactive wastes were disposed of appropriately and did not enter the sewer.
Queensland Health population health director Linda Selvey declined to be interviewed about the audit report but issued a statement to The Australian.
Dr Selvey admitted "shortcomings have been found" with waste approvals at the four hospitals and said action had been taken to deal with the situation.
"Despite some concern raised by the auditors in relation to possible inadequacies in the waste management practices in hospitals, the output from the advanced water treatment plant has consistently tested to be free of contaminants that could have come from hospitals," Dr Selvey said.
9:52 PM, April 07, 2009
At last, the TRUTH is beginning to surface about the LIE told to us concerning the 1st of the 7 Barriers of treatment.
Last year I personally spoke to the Chief Engineer of the Gold Coast Hospital for 15 minutes about their sewage system and WHAT goes into it.
He didn't really want to answer my questions, but did so belligerently and ended up hanging up on me. From the conversation I know that there is NO way any hospital can stop liquid wastes from becoming part of the sewage.
Our sewage systems were NEVER designed to separate different liquid substances from entering them. WHATEVER goes down a drain or toilet becomes sewage - simple as that!
Once a toxic chemical has passed through a person's body, they claim it is just sewage and they have NO CONTROL over what happens to the toxic chemicals. We now know that some chemicals remain CHEMICALLY intact despite sewage treatment plant "disinfection" and may even cause by-products to be produced.
Ask ANYONE who has experienced chemotherapy themselves or for a loved one - you are WARNED they are toxic and NOT to use the same toilet as the patient (if at all) without strenuously cleaning it with strong bleach.
Ask yourselves this - JUST HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE BEING TREATED WITH CHEMOTHERAPY NOW OR IN THE FUTURE - AS CANCER IS RAPIDLY BECOMING THE NUMBER ONE KILLER OF OUR TIMES! Then ask yourselves just HOW MUCH TOXIC CHEMICAL WASTE IS REALLY IN OUR SEWAGE!
There MAY be a lint trap or oil trap, but that's all. They do have different coloured plastic bins to contain hazardous materials such as needles and swabs. Some LEFT OVER chemotherapy liquid waste is sometimes collected BUT the law ALLOWS hospitals to dump a certain amount of chemicals and radio-active substances into the sewage system. This information was sourced elsewhere, but you can find it on this web-site:-
http://goldcoastwaterwatch.webs.com
if it is not there, please contact Citizens Against Drinking Sewage (CADS) on:- cadsgoldcoast@yahoo.com.au and it will be emailed to you.(This particular information has been removed from the internet). CADS have researched recycled sewage to drinking water, commonly called toilet-to-tap thoroughly and have a profuse amount of information for the asking.
Trade Waste approvals seem to be another farce in this situation. It depends on how much money you agree to give the authority - the more money - the more you are allowed to dump into the sewage - it all goes to the same treatment facility.
The hospitals don't have Trade Waste applications because they were never needed before - they are allowed to put just about any liquid down a sewer - that includes blood/vomit/effluent/and now it seems from "The Australian" report that human tissue is also in that sewage. This shouldn't be a surprise, after all - it does get cleaned up and thrown into a drain or the sewer, and people DO USE THE TOILETS.
And while you are thinking about the hospitals - have a think about every other industry such as tanneries, abattoirs, butcher shops, nursing homes, clinics/ veterinary surgeries/dairy farms/chicken farms and processing businesses and any other that disposes of body fluids from animals or humans into our sewers - YOU WILL BE DRINKING THEM AS WELL.
The Gold Coast doesn't source their water from a river that dumps many towns' sewage into it such as London (used as an example quite often)- we are VERY LUCKY in the developed World, but once they recycled sewage is added, we will have one of the most chemically polluted water sources in the known World.
WHAT CAN YOU DO TO STOP THIS?
1) Join up with a group who opposes this action
2)Write to anyone in Parliament or your local representative and tell them you don't want to drink it
3) Write to the newspapers - "The Australian" is the only one without a media-ban on these stories/editorials
4) PLEASE SIGN THE E-PETITION against the use of recycled sewage, it is on:-
http://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/view/EPetitions_QLD/CurrentEPetition.aspx?PetNum=1141&lIndex This is to be tabled in Parliament on 21st April 2009, so far it has over 18,000 signatures
3:37 PM, April 09, 2009
What we need is people taking photos of what the hospitals are pouring into the sewers. That would make people think twice about Bligh's recycled water.
8:05 PM, April 09, 2009
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