Flush then drink in the Sunshine State

PETER Collignon is a worried man. "Nobody in the world has done what southeast Queensland is about to do," says the eminent microbiologist and Australian National University professor of clinical medicine. "What is about to happen is the reversal of 150 years of public health policy in Australia because sewage will be put into the drinking water of more than two million people. Everywhere else in the world, the emphasis is on keeping sewage out of drinking water. We should be concerned about what Queensland is doing, especially as it is being looked at by the rest of the country as a solution to water supply problems."

 

Residents of southeast Queensland will become the first Australians to drink recycled sewage. Picture: David Martinelli

 

 

In February, southeast Queenslanders will become the first Australians to drink their own waste when 60 megalitres of

recycled sewage a day is pumped into Wivenhoe Dam, Brisbane's main water source.

 

The total volume will rise to 230ML a day later in the year. Although much of it will be used by the Swanbank and Tarong North power stations - which began receiving recycled water last year - between 10 and 25 per cent of the drinking water in Australia's fastest growing population centre will soon comprise of treated sewage.

 

The $2.5 billion Western Corridor Recycled Water Project, comprised of 200km of underground pipes linking three advanced treatment centres and nine pumping stations, is the third biggest advanced water treatment project in the world.

 

Collignon insists that contrary to claims by the Queensland Government, the project is unprecedented. "Nowhere in the world is the proportion of drinking water that is recycled sewage anything like 10 or 25 per cent. There's never been a population of this size that has been subjected to this."

 

Collignon rejects government claims that a seven-stage treatment process will ensure the water is safe. He raises three major health concerns.

 

Collignon says the technology is not available to detect minute quantities of viruses, some potentially fatal, which may enter the water supply. "The quantity of virus must effectively be reduced 10 billion-fold to make it safe. If you have a 1 per cent leakage through a tear in the reverse osmosis membranes, then the water is not safe."

 

The second area of concern raised by Collignon is the delay of one or more days before the results of tests for E.coli and other dangerous bacteria can become available.

 

"By that time, you will have substantial quantities of contaminated water in the dam and although you can do things to reduce the damage, there is potential for infections to get through. There will be no real time testing being done to get results immediately."

 

Third, Collignon says it is inevitable some antibiotics and other natural and man-made chemicals will not be filtered out. "It is of concern if various estrogens and hormones are being recycled, and it is not good if antibiotics and other drugs are being recycled."

 

Collignon concedes Queensland's treatment system is the best in the world. "If you're going to have it, there's no better system, but that's not the point. Putting sewage in drinking water is a very high-risk activity and should be used only as a last resort. Ninety-nine per cent of the time, I'm sure the system will be fine, but if something goes wrong, the implications are very big indeed."

 

Collignon says there are other water sources that are safer and cheaper.

 

"They could use the same reverse osmosis system to treat brackish water from the Brisbane River at much less cost. They don't need to use sewage. Sewage is the worst thing you can put into drinking water."

 

The dire water supply situation in southeast Queensland came about because planners had never envisaged it would rain so little over such a prolonged period that dam levels would drop to the unsustainable levels that forced residents on to the nation's first level-six restrictions last year. The problem has not been lack of rainfall so much as where rain has fallen. The Gold Coast's Hinze Dam and Sunshine Coast storages have plenty of water after heavy coastal falls, but the rain has not extended the short distance inland to the Wivenhoe Dam catchment.

 

The state's $9 billion plan to drought-proof the southeast includes a desalination plant on the Gold Coast and the controversial Traveston and Wyralong dams in addition to the recycling project. The average proportion of drinking water to be supplied by dams in the region will fall from 95 to 75 per cent.

 

In a development that angers Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast residents, a water grid will link their storages with the Wivenhoe Dam and Brisbane's supply, ensuring that recycled water is distributed throughout the region. In any event, the Queensland Water Commission's long-term strategy envisages pumping treated sewage directly into Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast and Toowoomba storages.

 

Toowoomba is where a debate over the issue reached its climax when a referendum of residents in 2006 rejected recycled water for drinking, with 62 per cent voting no. In a recent bid to address its increasingly chronic water shortage, the city has become the first large urban centre to draw town water from the Great Artesian Basin.

 

Toowoomba will be connected to the southeast Queensland water grid in 2010.

 

"It's very annoying that we're going to get lumbered with this when we rejected it so firmly in the first place," says Toowoomba businessman Clive Berghofer, who donated $20,000 to the no case campaign before the referendum.

 

"Think about it. Bodily fluids that are drained from people when they die will be put into the water that we have to drink."

 

Berghofer is one of a number of prominent Toowoomba citizens who have backed a continuing campaign against recycling. Last year, 500,000 copies of a glossy booklet called "Think Before You Agree to Drink" were distributed in southeast Queensland. The booklet reported the results of scientific studies it claimed had supported the case against drinking recycled water. However, the campaign was damaged at the time when The Australian revealed that four scientific experts quoted in the publication in fact supported the drinking of recycled water.

 

The recycled water issue is not a public issue today largely because southeast Queenslanders are convinced that the challenges of climate change are such that there is no alternative. The Liberal National Party Opposition believes recycled water should be used only for industrial purposes but is reluctant to trumpet its views. LNP strategists are concerned the issue will split the party, pitting pro-recycling Liberals against Nationals who strongly oppose the project.

 

Australian National University urban research professor Patrick Troy says people reject recycled water whenever they are given the opportunity of a vote, which is why former premier Peter Beattie reneged on a promise for a referendum for southeast Queensland.

 

"Not only are people being forced to drink it, they are being denied any say and their legitimate concerns are ignored," Troy says.

 

Troy says the answer to the water supply crisis is to encourage the use of rainwater tanks and the recycling of grey water for gardens. Southeast Queensland residents had demonstrated they were prepared to reduce demand, having slashed water consumption by two-thirds to less than the water commission's target of 140L per person per day.

 

"If everyone in Brisbane had to install a 5000 or 10,000L tank, that would solve the water problem."

 

Premier Anna Bligh yesterday rejected Troy's claims and launched a personal attack on the academic.

 

"These are ill-informed comments by somebody who has no expertise in the field of water treatment," Bligh says.

 

"The water processes that have been put in place to underpin our project are the best in the world. All of the science that has been done on this around the world where it has operated for 40 years, in places like California, shows that it is safe."

 

ANU economics professor Quentin Gratton says the experience of southeast Queensland mirrors a national problem: "It is nonsensical to be spending billions on these water infrastructure projects when the issue is demand. What we need to do is to reduce demand by charging appropriate prices."

 

Queensland Water Commission chief executive John Bradley says 220,000 southeast Queensland homes had been retro-fitted with rainwater tanks - about 25 per cent of the total, compared to 7 per cent in Melbourne - and new homes will need to have tanks plumbed in. "Rainwater tanks can provide a role in reducing demand but we need a diversity of sources in order to reliably provide potable water to residents," Bradley says.

 

Bradley rejects the claims by Collignon that the filtering process will not prevent contamination. "This is state-of-the-art technology being overseen by a panel of experts. These processes will reduce viruses and other contaminants to levels that will be below those that have been set. All testing on the western corridor scheme is showing that it will effectively remove contaminants to meet the stringent standards of the Australian recycled water guidelines."

 

The expert panel head, University of Queensland vice-chancellor Paul Greenfield, says the existing water supply is already being contaminated by run-off from feedlots, animal wastes and other sources in dam catchments.

 

"There are microbes in the dams now. We have a very advanced treatment process that will ensure water is cleaner than what is presently in the dams. We are using very sophisticated technology and we will have very close monitoring."

 

However, Greenfield is unable to give a guarantee the water will be safe. "We can only talk about improbabilities. There is always some risk with water. When you go overseas, you worry about water and that's why you buy bottled water. The difference here is that we haven't had to worry about water."

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