Time: 0645.
Place: Study at home.
Activity: Checking news on-line.
All seems innocent enough until I read the Toowoomba Chronicle for the day. Well, we have a crisis in South East Queensland and eastern Australia in general. It's called a drought, some say the worst ever recorded, but it is terrible and not getting better. A few months ago Toowoomba had a referendum on whether or not to add recycled treated sewage water into the dams to supplement what little there is left, to be used as drinking water. Well, the debate ebbed and flowed, and finally Toowoomba voted NO. This cost the government $450 000 to hold. It has come to pass that the State Government has now decreed that there will be no further voting and that recycled water WILL go ahead across the state.
Now, an ex Toowoomba mayor (aged 74) has been quoted as saying that we'll lose the Japanese beef export market if we clean their beef with this water. Water, mind you, that will not only meet but exceed UN health standards for drinking water. Here's my email to the Chronicle this morning:
As a former long term resident of Toowoomba, I find it disturbing to find a former mayor quoted in the media ad nauseum about his antipathy regarding the necessary implementation of water recycling in South East Queensland. The latest quote regarding Japanese market beef being washed in this ‘stuff’ is about as mature as his comments at the time of the introduction to Toowoomba of roundabouts, where he is quoted as considering Toowoomba motorists incapable of negotiating them. Adelaide has drunk recycled water from various communities up river on the Murray Darling for decades – no illness. Where does he think Adelaide gets its water from? The SkyLab astronauts survive for a year or more on recycled water. Does Mr Berghoffer and his ilk think for one moment this government/council/society will for one minute allow its citizens to be deliberately poisoned by this action? The answer is a resounding ‘NO’. To the sceptics I say use your tank water and allow the rest of us to progress at this period of dire supply.
I felt much better after that. I notice this evening that the Chronicle has taken off its article about the recycled water along with the former mayor's comments. I wonder if they'll publish it tomorrow?
12 comments:
"The SkyLab astronauts survive for a year or more on recycled water."
Yes but the astronauts aren't drinking recycled water from waste from every hospital, morgue etc.
The astronaut argument is weak at best.
Oh, the weakness comes from your argument that hospitals and morgues discharge all their waste into the sewers. That's fallacious in the extreme. The most toxic and contagious of waste products are disposed of in a separate process far removed from the drain pipes of a hospital or morgue. This salacious exageration typifies ignorance of current practices. Next you'll be saying that you get more germs from being licked by a dog than kissed by another human? Let's get science into the equation and leave out as much as possible the emotive claptrap typical of the anti recycling argument. I'm glad my other letter to the Chronicle got published, although a reader informs me the letter supporting recycling above mine was the better argument. I don't care, just DO IT!
haha you think I'm that Poowoomba guy with the blog. Not!
I couldn't care less, frankly. It's just that such a clearly well researched argument from this person called 'waterboy' deserves to be claimed by a real person, not an anonymous Toowoomba Ratepayer. I'm really genuinely pleased to receive comment, and anonymity is permitted via this medium, it's just that you have gone to a lot of effort, you are computer-savvy, you are obviously passionate about your case, I really respect that. But we're not discussing or publishing porn here. Incidentally, if you really would like to highlight a mistake in water reticulation, look no further back than the 3 million Sydneysiders who had to boil town water for days when the conventional reticulation collection/treatment system 'failed'. My question to you is: do you think the government (local/state/federal) would for one minute entertain the notion of deliberately making the population of anywhere on continental Australia ill from such a scheme? If we encourage industry to rely less on the consumption of potable water (3 industries here in Brisbane alone consume massive amounts of clean drinking water daily, I think from memory 135 ML) we'll use what we've got smarter. It's a multi pronged attack. When I arrived in Toowoomba in November 1964 it was during what was then a major prolonged drought. My memory of the city is one of almost constantly having boom and bust weather-wise. Council's sale of treated water to Millmerran was very productive. We have to do lots more smartly with what is a limited resource. Topaz received 142mm on Sunday. Awesome! Well, it 'aint happening down here (more's the pity). We have to plan for the future and pray for imminent relief from arguably the worst drought in our recorded history.
It's amusing that my sense of humour has been brought into question by one or more 'bloggers'. A difference of opinion resulting in a slanging match that would even put the conservative Queensland Opposition to shame is tacky in the least over such an important topic as water. As Borat would say: "humourous? Not!"
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