Lets state the obvious!!

If there is one thing you can be sure of it is that in any referendum on re-cycling you get those who are easily led, and those who refuse to be led, both being manipulated by the scare-mongers.

In the recent Toowoomba referendum on the water recycling issue the facts where lost in a concerted, vocal and inflammatory scare campaign run by a few vested interests. All the science, common sense and the reality of an increasingly desperate situation are overshadowed by fear. One of my friends was so convinced that the science could not be trusted, that they actually could draw parallels in their mind to drugs and asbestos. I know that the thought is a little disconcerting, but the product is as safe as houses, and it is a finite recourse that we can re-use.

These people who are to scared to drink the recycled product can join the 20+% (citation missing, but I read this in a government publication before our referendum earlier this year) of the population that refuse to drink town water now. You can either trust the water from the big soft drink companies, or, like my aforementioned friend, drink UNTREATED bird shit (which is known to be a fantastic transmitter of all sorts of goodies), bacteria, dead frogs, decaying matter and dirt from your roof in the form of rainwater. Or better yet, move to Ethiopia, or Calcutta… Our water is pretty good…

The water we drink now is chlorinated to kill be BILLIONS of microbes and stuff in our current water supply, and it will still be used on the far higher quality re-cycled product. Plus the re-cycled product goes through stages of filtration and treatment such as UV rays, that kill most known organisms. It goes into an existing dam for a biological component even.

The one thing I would suggest, and I don’t feel it is necessarily necessary but may make the debate more palatable, (pun intended), is to ensure hospital and industrial contaminated water should be separated. That would be affordable, not like some of the pie in the sky ideas about running two mains, trading contaminated water with coal mines (both streams then need to be treated!!!, and piping it thousands of Km’s from the north It is difficult, expensive and impractical to move vast quantities of water uphill.
Some people have absolutely NO concept of affordability and practicality. Furthermore the new filtration techniques literally take out anything bigger than a water molecule. I wish the scared would learn some basic chemistry, as the “Drugs” they are all so convinced we “Cannot” get out, are all COMPOUND molecules. Um… That means they are bigger like!

I better stop. This is the brief story stating the obvious that got me wound up this time! :->

QCC warns of water recycling scare campaign. ABC News Online

QCC warns of water recycling scare campaignThe Queensland Conservation Council (QCC) says a public vote on recycled drinking water will be pointless unless it is coupled with a public education campaign.

The State Government has introduced legislation into Parliament to allow a plebiscite on March 17 next year.

A ‘yes’ vote will mean recycled drinking water is used as an ongoing strategy.

The council’s Glenn Walker fears the vote could be derailed by a scare campaign.

“The concerns are that there’ll be a major scare campaign as we saw in Toowoomba,” he said.

“So what we’re saying to the Government is they need to run a very big and directed public education campaign to make sure the public’s aware of the benefits of recycled water and also that it’s a safe water supply option.

“I definitely think it was a very concerted scare campaign that lost the vote in Toowoomba and we’re worried that will happen here, but I think if the Government puts a lot of resources into a public education campaign then we will get good results here too.”

And our democratically elected, but somewhat authoritarian premier, who decided to put it to the vote made this excuse for not having the guts to just do it…

Beattie outlines recycled water content

Queensland Premier Peter Beattie says the drinking water supply in the state’s south-east is likely to contain about 10 per cent recycled water if residents vote ‘yes’ next year. Nineteen council areas will take part in a plebiscite in March.
Toowoomba residents this year rejected a similar proposal, but Mr Beattie says that was for a 25 per cent mix. “I don’t think our per cent will be anywhere near that,” he said. “I think it’s likely to be in the 10 per cent category, outside of emergencies which may then be a bit higher”.
“So in other words, it will be a different percentage, so it’s a different question.”

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