At the weekend 62 percent of Toowoomba residents voted against drinking treated sewage effluent. Just yesterday the Local Government Association of Queensland put out a press release suggesting Toowoomba is not typical of the rest of Queensland – or at least not typical of South East Queensland.
The association sponsored a survey which including 700 South East Queensland residents and 60 percent of them said they supported the use of treated sewage effluent to supplement the town water supply.
Across Queensland they found 57 percent of people in support of the concept with support strongest in males and lowest amongst those over 65 years.
These results correspond somewhat with a survey done by Graham Young and John Black last year as part of their regular gig on local ABC radio called ‘What the People Want’.
Nearly 500 people were survey for the ABC radio program.
Graham Young and John Black begin their report with comment that: “If there is one thing that Premier Peter Beattie could do that is less popular than making Brisbanites drink recycled sewage, it is to force them to add fluoride to their water”.
How about that! And I was given fluoride tablets as a child.
Anyway, Graham Young and John Black found that pretty much everyone agrees (96 percent) with recycling water for garden and industrial use, but only 48 percent agree when the recycling is for drinking water. 35 percent disapproved of recycling sewage as drinking water with a percent undecided or without an opinion or not wishing to answer.
The full report with lots and lots of table can be read by clicking here.
A few days ago they put up a new poll and emailed me. They are keen to know how you feel about this issue.
If you go to their questionnaire by clicking here or copying and pasting http://whatthepeoplewant.net/questionnaire-021-water-recycling.asp into your browser address bar, you can tell them.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
The problem with recycling water from sewage is that the water has a “molecular memory” of what it used to be mixed with. Dr. Jacques Benveniste, a world-famous scientist, has shown that sub-etheric vibrations of the water molecule digitally encode and transmit “biological messages.”
This was proved by “diluting a substance in water to a degree where the final solution contains only water molecules. With the hypersensitive systems he was using, however, he observed that this highly diluted solution initiated a reaction, as if the initial molecules were still present in the water: water kept a trace of the molecules present at the beginning of the dilutions…” See http://www.digibio.com/
This means that recycling water from sewage would result in situations where the water you drink, sprinkle on your lawn or wash your car with, would act as if it were still mixed with the molecules of the person who had earlier imbibed it. And that could have been a hospital inmate, or even someone who ate genetically modified food. Which, as the saying goes, could have “unknown side effects.”
Schiller.
P.S. This is of course hogwash 🙂 but apparently quite a few grasp the notion of molecular memory at an intuitive level.
Only 48% approved recycling for drinking water, not a majority. And there remains sufficient ambiguity as to whether the respondents made a distinction between recycling of sink and shower grey water or bog water.
But I say again, why go to all the cost of removing fertiliser from water when this fertiliser has a value that may attract a price premium from a farm user?
Ian in the LGAQ survey a clear majority supported recycling, 60 percent in the SE and 57 across Queensland. I don’t have a link, but there might be something at their website.
The real problem with the recycling issue is the monopoly status of of the water supplier. Many of the customers have different water needs but there is little choice in the equation.
For example, should recycled water be introduced, it may result in a big increase in the fixed charge which is essentially just a tax to cover water infrastructure. The commercial water users may prefer this option because it guarantees them certainty of supply with a relatively minor cost.
The domestic user on a large block has the option of installing water tanks as their primary water source and would benefit from a small fixed cost and a large usage charge for town water. They wouldn’t be so concerned with the ‘poo factor’ as their drinking water would be coming from their rainwater tanks.
Under the present system, the domestic user with a water tank pays twice. Firstly they provide their own infrastructure to collect rainwater and recycle grey water, and then they must pay again for the public infrastructure through high fixed charges.
i don’t believe we should even think twice about the issue. Water shortages are at an all time low and we need to act now in order to preserve sustainablilty for the future. It is selfish of us to be picking and choosing, fussing about the thought of drinking recycled water when, in a few years time, people won’t have any choice. They won’t have any choice because we were too stupid to do something about the problem now.
i don’t believe we should even think twice about the issue. Water shortages are at an all time low and we need to act now in order to preserve sustainablilty for the future. It is selfish of us to be picking and choosing, fussing about the thought of drinking recycled water when, in a few years time, people won’t have any choice. They won’t have any choice because we were too stupid to do something about the problem sooner.
The real issue here is not whether people in the urban environment are “choosing” to drink treated effluent. Let’s be realistic here! Where does everyone think that water comes from in the first place?? In our traditional image of “where water comes from” most people don’t give a thought to how water gets to their tap. In reality it runs off a catchment and is stored in dams. What on earth do people think comes off catchments? Every leaky septic and dead cow in a water supply catchment influences the quality of water being collected in the dam. Storage in the dam itself is affected by the nutrients and bactieral load delivered by fish and birds utilising the dam as habitat, cattle grazing on the banks (seen the banks of Wivenhoe lately?), cyanobacteria blooms etc etc.
The reality is that our water is already recycled time and time again before it reaches our taps. The dirty water discharged upstream by inland communities becomes the water stored for potable use by the coastal communities… and it has been that way for centuries here and overseas.
This is really an issue of media hype and ignorance or an unwillingness of people to recognise that we live in a world of finite resources and we are not so high and mighty that we are outside the biosphere.
Of course, this is my opinion but I for one do not object to drinking recycled effluent when treated to drinking water standards.
We hear a lot about cost comparisons, but I do wonder if someone has done the math on greenhouse gas emissions comparing desalination with treating effluent to drinking standard??
ionolsen23 Great website! Bookmarked! I am impressed at your work!
In 1992 the federal Government initiated a strategy to force the privatisation of Australia’s $80 billion of water and wastewater infrastructure and force the introduction of treated sewage effluent sourced from hospitals, industry, homes and abattoirs, DIRECTLY into both Sydney and S.E. Qld’s drnking water supply mains, a world first.
Both The Courier Mail and Qld Premier Peter Beattie’s Government {one and the same}recent decision to deny residents their hard fought for basic human right to freedom of choice came about after it was realised that a book entitled ‘ Think Before You Agree To Drink – Is Sewage A Source Of Drinking Water’? was about to be sent to all S.E residents.
The decision was taken so that the government would not have to inform the public on both sides of this issue {debate}. The Courier Mail, ABC, SBS, Sydney Morning Herald and Media in general have refused to truthfully and fully inform the public on this issue, why?
As Peter Beattie has already stated, both the water recycling {Reuse of treated sewage effluent} pipeline – plant and desalination plant are already privatised.
Ask yourself, why have so many polls been carried out on the reuse of treated sewage effluent for drinking purposes when the other side against this concept is yet to be told? The ABC stated that it was recycled drinking water that was to be used. It is not drinking water that is being treated and reused.
If you want the truth, those involved, the lies, the misleading statements and articles over the past few years, just ask. Were you aware that since 1996 in Qld there have been three failed attempts to introduce treated sewage effluent DIRECTLY into the public’s drinking water supply mains, or that the government has been carrying out research into direct potable reuse with CSIRO through CIRM, since 1995?
Regards, Laurie Jones. Mob: 0404051055
Sewerage effluent to potable water is environmentally sound
The full treatment of raw sewerage to potable quality water is essential for environmental reasons. The pollution of our oceans and rivers must stop.
Most water used in the home is for washing of body and clothes, also toilet flush and garden. The potable water from effluent should be piped via the existing single pipeline into our homes. Drinking water should be supplied in large bottles. The source of this bottled water would be from our existing reservoirs.
The other concern most raised by individual concerning toxic pollutants is simply resolved. The resolution of this legitimate concern is to ban the sale of all chemical agents in retail outlets except soap and chlorine bleach. The disposals of waste water from industry, hospitals and scientific research stations must be treated separately.
The environmental issue requires the treatment of all our wastes to the same standard as it was sourced.
Jim Wills