Water recycling in Australia

From the ABC, with my comments below

Inland communities 'have fewer water options'

Federal water spokesman and parliamentary secretary, Malcolm Turnbull, says a number of inland communities will have to face the contentious issue of drinking recycled water in the near future.

Yesterday, the southern Queensland city of Toowoomba voted overwhelmingly against a proposal to recycle waste water for drinking.

Mr Turnbull says inland cities have fewer options available to them than coastal areas, which have higher rainfall or desalination options.

"Inland cities will tend to come to this crunch much sooner than coastal cities," he said.

"And I think most communities would not embrace indirect potable reuse of recycled water if there are other equally viable economic, environmental options available to them."

He says he respects Toowoomba's no vote in the referendum.

Mr Turnbull says despite the result, most Australians support water recycling programs for non-drinking purposes.

He says a strong scare campaign in the lead up to the Toowoomba vote proved successful.

"There is a yuck factor, people are apprehensive about using recycled water for drinking purposes," he said.

"I understand that and again, that's why we've said is it sustainable and safe - yes - is it compulsory - no.

"It's up to communities to make their own decisions about this."


What everyone in this whole water debate seems to forget is that most inland communities already drink recycled sewage.

For goodness' sake what do people think happens to it once they flush it? If you live downstream of another town what are you drinking?

"Yes but the river purifies it" people say. That's true... the river uses sand filtration, dilution, biological filtration and UV radiation to sterilise the water and render it fit to drink-- the same processes proposed in these recycling plants.

I believe that the EU solved major river pollution problems years ago by mandating that every town that puts its sewage into a river must locate its sewage outfall upstream of its water intake. That's a pretty simple method of ensuring that sewage treatment is the best possible standard. It's also the very thing that Australians seem so hesitant to take on board.

In Narrabri, we get the best of it all. Our town water is from underground water, not the river. Our treated sewage is used to irrigate a cotton farm which runs at a profit to the Council and is used to support various educational groups in Narrabri.

Most people drink rain water collected from their roofs- and of course we never have pollution or birds on the roof or possums or rats do we?
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