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The Forum > Article Comments > Water futures > Comments

Water futures : Comments

By Dianne Thorley, published 27/2/2006

Toowoomba, in South-East Queensland, shows the way with water recycling.

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Good to see!
Does it have to be at this level only? Have smaller units or even individual houses no part to play, making communities or families responsible for their own welfare? In the UK villages or subdivisions of suburbia are being built with electricity from solar, heating mostly be better design, water by recycling and some food from associated vegetable plots. This shifts the power and the responsibility to the community or individuals, seemingly a more democratic division of power.
Posted by untutored mind, Monday, 27 February 2006 11:03:58 AM
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I think this is a massive waste of money and an egotistical indulgence on the part of Toowoomba City Council. It is not necessary to treat the water to this stage because primary treated sewerage has at least $9 worth of nitrogen per megalitre and a lot of soaps (alkalis) that will save on the amount of lime needed on acidic soils. In short, to a farmer it is already a value added asset.

And it is my understanding that local farmers have already offered to swap their clean allocation of irrigation water for Toowoomba's value added water. But this was either ignored or declined.

Instead, a bunch of narcissists are basking in their 15 minutes of fame, building a costly monument with federal funds when a much simpler and cleverer, low-tech, solution is right under their nose.

Indeed, there would be no need to swap water because the farmer could simply loan the water to the council on the proviso that they send it back to the farmer when he needed it, with the nutrients added as just and equitable rent. The city would only need to pay for the pipes and the pumping costs from and to the nearby farmers, and some additional storage to deal with the ebbs and flows in demand.

Toowoomba is perfectly situated for such a scheme, having the right mix of urban population and surrounding agriculturaL uses. The 130,000 residents, in 50,000 households will use 12,000 MgL a year. This would reduce to 9,000 MgL if all houses captured their shower water for flushing toilets.

Irrigators in the area are likely to use 4-6 MgL per hectare on their crops or pastures so the entire water needs of the city could be delivered from only 1,500 to 2,000 hectares of irrigated land. The city itself is in the order of 5,000 hectares and is bigger than the irrigated area needed to loan the water. And household water tanks could replenish the water that is lost on urban gardens etc.
Posted by Perseus, Monday, 27 February 2006 2:01:49 PM
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The Seven Barriers to Water Futures - Toowoomba

1. Public opposition

A substantial proportion of Toowoomba's residents oppose the use of recycled water for drinking in Toowoomba. A petition against the project has gathered over 10,000 signatures.

2. Political opposition

Many politicians are against the project in its current form. Politicians in favour of recycling water believe it should be the community's decision whether they wish to drink recycled sewage.

3. Councillor opposition

Several Toowoomba City Councillors oppose the project and are critical of the Council's handling of the issue.

4. Council's PR nightmare

The Council's promotional materials have misled the public - claiming that water discharged into Cooby Dam is pure when it is expected to contain at least 30mg/litre of dissolved material.

5. Continuing health concerns

The long-term effects of ingesting the chemicals which remain in the recycled sewage are unknown so is the potential effect of a combination of chemicals.

To date, the Council has not confirmed the testing regime for the over 87,000 chemicals in existence which may be in the recycled sewage.

6. Financial concerns

The costings in the NWC application are at best preliminary. Should Acland Coal not take the RO waste stream, Council will require 600 hectares near Oakey for evaporation ponds at an estimated ADDITIONAL cost of almost $70 million. The Council's preferred alternative - using only 68 hectares at an additional cost of $15 million - is regarded by CH2M Hill as having "significant unknowns" and being "water quality dependent".

7. Long-term concerns

Under the NWC application, Toowoomba residents will need to cut their water consumption by a further 20%. The project at best defers the need for a new water source. Also, the projected life expectancy of the Acland Coal mine means that, even if the RO waste stream is provided to the mine, an alternative for dealing with the RO waste stream will be required upon mine closure, costing at least the $70 million estimated amount set out in the NWC application.
Posted by 4350water, Monday, 27 February 2006 8:02:10 PM
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The Toowoomba City Council needs to remember when government demonstrates its disinclination to heed public opinion ,lobby groups and the general public have to put their message in a form that most governments readily respond to- that which threatens electoral survival and this message will come loud and clear.
They do not want to be Australia's EXPERIMENT!!
Posted by Thinker, Monday, 27 February 2006 9:53:11 PM
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I think reclaiming water from sewage for drinking is a marvellous idea and we should follow worldwide precedents.

In Singapore they recover water from the city's greywater, not lumpy flushed water or hospital or industrial waste, these run in separate sewers. They treat the greywater to a very high standard and then don't use 99% of it in the reticulation system.

In Windhoek, Namibia they reclaim water from effluent and then pipe it to shanty towns standpipes.

In Orange County, California they propose (2007) to use reclaimed water as a barrier to seawater entry into aquifers and have seen the need to refine the process using RO because chemicals and pharmaceuticals have percolated into the aquifers using older technology. Public outreach on the proposal is only now beginning.

There is no other place on the planet other than Singapore, Winhoek and Orange County even attempting to reclaim drinking water from effluent.

If you know of one please post a response here to make me feel more assured.

This batty (spelt Beattie) idea is inspired by a government that has failed to keep infrastructure growing with the population.

Toowoomba has written in its NWC funding application that it is to be a demonstration plant for later implementation in Brisbane and the Gold Coast. The term "living laboratory" is used and Beattie has promised "whole of government support".

I think Brisbane should try it first. Toowoomba has plenty of alternative sources of cheaper, better, environmentally friendly water.
Posted by Bela, Monday, 27 February 2006 11:09:33 PM
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Could someone please enlighten me as to how many dams Johhny "Bonsai" Howard has constructed in the previous decade, I know Bob Hawke made the huge Burdekin Falls Dam a reality 20 years ago, but am not aware of anything since.

Of course those who can afford to should have their own water tank, to relieve the pressure on water usage, however the big picture still rests with government on this most basic of human needs.

Untill we elect a government that is prepared to take it's responsibility, water will continue to be an underdone political notion.

Bonsai is a little bush.
Posted by SHONGA, Tuesday, 28 February 2006 3:29:07 AM
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Shonga, water is a state responsibility, not a federal one. And the turkey who vetoed the Wolfdene Dam site (where it actually rains) was Wayne Goss and the turkey who passed the Wild Rivers (outlawing dams) Act was Beattie.
Posted by Perseus, Tuesday, 28 February 2006 10:21:24 PM
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This brings to mind the Urban myth that the toilets at Oxford University have little signs reading "Flush generously, London needs your water".

It is realy good the see constructive proposals, and annoying to see the same old same old political jibes intruding.

Yes technology may be feasible, but to what extent are the high cost final squeeky clean steps at the end needed, and as Perseus notes is this best use of investment. Low tech can be good too.

Let us applaud the overall direction, but also listen to reasoned criticisms which may help a better final strategy emerge.
Posted by d, Wednesday, 1 March 2006 8:39:33 AM
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Toowoomba is a large,growing city in a region with declining rainfall and inadequate dams. It can't desalinate seawater and one can't return to the past expecting all households to meet their total use from tanks (remember, the rainfall problem). Purification of wastewater must happen. Far from being patted onm the back Toowoomba Council needs a kick up the rear for not acting years ago. Brisbane must follow suit yesterday. Tell me, when are Queenslanders going to start stockpiling bottled water and are there plans by the State to prevent profiteering by retailers? Brisbane City and the State should fully (100%) refund all proven purchases of tanks and consumption limiters for both domestic and private use.
Posted by artsgrad, Wednesday, 1 March 2006 11:07:59 AM
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Rainwater is a reliable source of water for Toowoomba. For the 12 months to March, 2006, 601mm of rainfall occurred in Toowoomba. This rainfall was sufficient to supply 50% of an average household’s indoor water needs for the entire year. An average house collecting rainwater from the roof and using it for all purposes would have derived at least 75 000 litres of water (assumes 175 sq.m roof area; 75% yield/25% losses; annual water use indoors 150kl) from a 4 500 litre rainwater tank. Rainwater must be collected from the whole roof area and used immediately it is received to maximise the rate of tank draw down.

It is both practical and economic to collect water from all downpipes of a house by using “skinny tanks” which are up to 1m wide, 1m high and can be 1m – 3m in length thereby having capacity of 1000 litres – 3000 litres each. The tanks easily fit under the eaves of a house. They are linked and draw down is controlled to provide uninterrupted supply whilst water is available. Continuity of supply is guaranteed by seamless, automatic transfer to mains water supply when tanks are empty and back again immediately rainwater becomes available. It is not necessary for rainfall to be even during the year. The only influence of extreme rainfall events is when tank capacity is insufficient to contain the water produced. This loss has been included in the above yield calculation for Toowoomba over the last 12 months.

When used like this, rainwater tanks will permanently secure household drinking water supply by providing about one-half of annual indoor water requirements in Toowoomba.

When all buildings replace mains water with rainwater (building owners can be providers of drinking water to the general public provided the quality is certified drinking quality which can be achieved to ADWG standards by ultra-violet treatment; or they can simply supply rainwater for non-drinking purposes) this will secure Toowoomba’s drinking water supply.

In addition, when greywater that initially was rainwater is recycled on-site for non-drinking water supply, the yield increases further.

Greg Cameron
www.urbanrainwater.com
Posted by GC, Thursday, 2 March 2006 8:53:27 AM
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A very good point, GC.

I need to correct the numbers provided in my above post on farmers loaning their irrigation water to Toowoomba for use and return to the farmer when he needs it. I got the population figures wrong. I said,

"The 130,000 residents(actually 91,000), in 50,000 (actually 35,000)households will use 12,500 (actually 8,750) MgL a year. This would reduce to 9,000 (actually 6,560) MgL if all houses captured their shower water for flushing toilets.

Irrigators in the area are likely to use 4-6 MgL per hectare on their crops or pastures so the entire water needs of the city could be delivered from only 1,500 to 2,000 (actually 1,090 to 1,650) hectares of irrigated land. The city itself is in the order of 5,000 hectares and is bigger than the irrigated area needed to loan the water.

So if the city of Toowoomba was meeting it's obligation to take all reasonable steps to help itself, like adequate water tanks, before putting it's hand out for public money, nearly all of it's current water allocation could be re-allocated to nearby farms. They could then loan it back to the city for drinking, washing, flushing purposes before returning it with value added nutrients, to the nearby farmers when they need it.

This would boost local agricultural production by $2 to $5 million a year, have flow-on effects of another $5 to $10 million a year and produce 150 to 300 extra local jobs. In contrast, the interest on the $40 million (?) recycling plant will see $2.5 million going out of the community each year at a cost of 50 local jobs.

The recycling sewerage option is a typical bureaucratic solution that is long on image value and very short on real public benefit.
Posted by Perseus, Thursday, 2 March 2006 10:54:01 AM
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It is also not widely understood that, unless Toowoomba's population makes a sudden jump to take the entire output from the recycling plant, this new water will be more than double the reported cost.

Put simply, the costings of projects such as this one are usually based on the assumption that the plant works at full capacity. But if the city already has an allocation of water then the project will only be replacing existing water not creating new supply. So while the whole city will get to drink their neighbour's urine, their existing water allocation will either evaporate from the Dam or be released back into the river. And this will remain the case until the population increases enough to use both lots of water.

So forget all these calculations that show the recycled sewerage to be a similar cost to the existing water. If the actual demand for extra water is only another 1,000 MgL a year then the whole interest cost of $2.5 million, and likely operating costs of at least another $5 million should be spread over that 1,000 MgL. And that would mean the real cost of this water is about $7.50 per thousand litres or seven times the current price.

If anyone has more detailed costings I would appreciate your sharing them with us here.
Posted by Perseus, Thursday, 2 March 2006 11:08:21 AM
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My family has not been connected to mains water for over 30 years. During this time, we had a couple of low rain fall periods [less than 50% of average]. We did not run out of water.
Our storage has ranged from 25000L to 50000L, but regardless of that, we have never run out of water.
There is nothing like having all the tanks below 1/4 full to generate water saving habits.
I have an investment of over $7000 in my tanks & pumps for this domestic water. I have a further investment of $2400 in a "grey" water system, for my garden. The cost of maintenance, & operation of these systems is roughly equal to urban water rates. All this investment was achieved on a little less than the average income.
Our farmers are not allowed to pump from the rivers, as that water is required for urban water supply.
Can any of you understand why we feel it is time for you to catch your own water, at your own expense, in your own storage [tanks], rather than take an ever increasing quantity, of our water, from an ever increasing area. Its time ti get off our backs, Brisbane, & stand on your own feet.
Hasbeen
Posted by Hasbeen, Thursday, 2 March 2006 11:11:39 AM
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artsgrad - First of all Toowoomba is not in a region with declining rainfall, it is curently in drought status which is not unusual in any part of Australia, droughts can and do happen. Secondly our dams have been extremely efficient given that they are still at 26 percent after 6 years of drought weather and given the fact that during this time TCC started supplying water from them to several surrounding shires and add to that the 2,750 megalitres that have been released each year from Cressbrook Dam for the farmers downstream then you would be slightly incorrect in saying that our dams are inadequate, they have in fact been our saviour.
Posted by Garg, Thursday, 2 March 2006 12:02:52 PM
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The city has spent more than a decade telling farmers that they had a duty of care to the environment. This duty of care started out as a claim that we set aside 10% of our farmland for environmental purposes. This grew, over time, to the point where we were expected to set aside 30% of the farm until last year, when Beattie didn't even bother with any particular level and banned all clearing, even in districts that still had 90% of the vegetation intact. And he justified it on the basis of our duty of care.

So what about the city dwellers duty of care? They won't even impose mandatory water tanks on every detached house because the $3-$4,000 would be too much for people, who have just pocketed $150,000 in untaxed capital gains, to pay. The nine square metres from their 600 to 900m3 house block (1-1.5% of total) was considered too inconvenient.

What a sorry bunch of hypocritical scum.
Posted by Perseus, Friday, 3 March 2006 12:13:21 PM
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With all my appreciation, admiration and attraction to the US EPA/WHO mentioned with article as grounded fathers of industrialised sewage purification, I would like to admit that modern sanitation has been developed even in the Old World far prior to establishing of the reputable organizations.

And any word on this topic recently provides no clarification of WHAT particularly is supposed to be treated to WHICH requirements (re-use for a water supply, irrigation etc) and HOW local polluters could comply with norms if any were heard of in contemporary Queensland
Posted by MichaelK., Friday, 3 March 2006 4:17:41 PM
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Rainwater tanks are dismissed as an option for Toowoomba’s future water supply based on cost estimates which are incorrect.

The “Toowoomba Water Futures” plan estimates that the cost of fitting a 10KL rainwater tank to 35 000 Toowoomba houses is $175m while the water yield per house is 25KL. On these figures, a rainwater installation costs $5 000 and yields 25KL of water per household at an average cost of $7/KL. Obviously these costs are not affordable when the cost of mains drinking water in Toowoomba is $0.64/KL.

A 5KL rainwater supply system involving one or more tanks will yield 77KL of water (under current drought conditions) and will cost $2 500 per house if installed for 35 000 existing houses.

The low cost is achieved by using a blow moulding machine for manufacturing plastic rainwater tanks, and by training teams of specialist installers.

The cost of the machine and tooling to manufacture 1250 litre plastic rainwater tanks is about $8 million. A single machine makes one tank every five minutes and can produce 70 000 tanks a year.

The investment in technology and work crews is justified if every house is supplied.

Tanks of 1250 litres capacity are rectangular, slim and low. They fit neatly and unobtrusively beneath the eave of a house. More importantly, they enable four tanks to be positioned to capture water from all downpipes of an average house.

The Federal Government has conditionally offered Toowoomba $23M for the proposed water recycling scheme. Were a grant of $8M to be made to finance the cost of one blow moulding machine, this would ensure that the cost of tanks would be limited to the variable cost of manufacture – comprising labour and materials.

Using Council’s own figures, the subsidy would be worth $2 500 per household. The machine can supply 175 000 houses between Toowoomba and Brisbane over the next 10 years and therefore it will be fully utilised. The cost of the subsidy over 175 000 households is $45 per household.

Greg Cameron
Posted by GC, Monday, 29 May 2006 3:52:59 PM
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Talking money is not providing water available for re-use.
Posted by MichaelK., Thursday, 8 June 2006 11:33:53 AM
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My husband and I were married in Hawaii and I ordered the Hawaiian umbrella tree from a reliable site at http://4bonsai.com that was referred by a friend. This Bonsai Tree was an anniversary gift to him. Because of the weather I wasn't expecting to see it for awhile. When I got home yesterday, it had arrived.....on our anniversary! It is the most beautiful Bonsai Tree I have ever seen. We look forward to buying many more trees from that site for a remarkable service. I do have interest in buying Bonsai Seed kits, Ikebana, Specimen Bonsai
and Bonsai specimen. There are other interesting items found in their site such as Bonsai Figurines, Feng Shui products, Feng Shui, Lucky Bamboo, Lucky Bamboo pots, Lucky Bamboo kits, Bonsai humidity trays and lots of Bonsai under $30.00. I think they also offer Bonsai tree wholesale, Bonsai trees wholesale and Bamboo wholesale packages for those who wants to have a business venture for all types of Bonsai.

Or is there anyone who can recommend a better site that offers more bonsai products?
Posted by mcqlet, Saturday, 15 July 2006 10:22:02 AM
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To secure water in future, we should think and concentrate about this issue. A scientific method should be prepare for this.
Posted by Nadim, Sunday, 24 December 2006 8:05:42 PM
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Yeah, surely SCIENTIFIC. And scientists in Australia-WHO?
Posted by MichaelK., Sunday, 24 December 2006 9:47:05 PM
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