Peter,

Googling 'xeno estrogens' yielded the top listing of a Canadian site: http://www.georgiastrait.org/xenofacts.php , containing this quotation, for what it may be worth: "UK research has suggested that some male infertility problems in the London area may be linked to the drinking water supply, which contains sewage effluent and has been found to be contaminated with hormone- mimicking nonylphenols."

I noted your mention of xeno estrogens in the context of under-city groundwater contamination in your second post in this thread: it seems this contamination issue may also be a downside to the proposal to recycle reclaimed effluent into the existing reticulated water supply system, and consequently a powerfully good reason to segregate any future reclaimed water in a different distribution network to that of domestic supply.

The very sentence in which you point out the risk of xeno estrogens and other contaminants provides the signpost to another part of the solution. Your words: [xeno estrogens] ".....effective at parts per trillion and so unfilterable EXCEPT BY DISTILLATION."; my emphasis. What consideration has been given to desalination of seawater via the reduced pressure distillation pathway? A paper, "Large scale Solar Desalination using Multi Effect Humidification", by Dr Alan Williams, is the top listing of a google search using the terms 'reduced pressure desalination'. Here is the link:
http://www.globalwarmingsolutions.co.uk/large_scale_solar_desalination_using_multi_effect_humidification.htm
See also http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=134#4482

Note the projected cost of desalinated water of $0.28US/Kl in comparison with the $5-6AUS/Kl for Burdekin water given by Perseus. The modification of Dr Williams' proposal using solar pond heat accumulation may result in even lower costs.

As I understand it, both effluent recycling and reverse osmosis desalination require the availability of hi-tech membrane elements as an ongoing expendable input. It is very apparent that supply of these elements will be under conditions that ensure the customer remains over a barrel. Nip this prospective racket in the bud right now! Cut back, install tanks, reduced-pressure desalinate!

Ludwig, I completely agree with you that large-scale implementation of tanks wont be enough, of itself, to guarantee supply for SEQ. Assuming that rainfall around Brisbane approaches 80% of normal, and is spread reasonably evenly across the next 18 months, and that a 'war production regime' with respect to manufacture, allocation, and installation of tanks can actually be achieved, such will require to be accompanied by very carefully designed and overseen restrictions.

The conservation of existing reserves will need to be intensified immediately, if continuity of domestic supply is to be relatively assured for those residences and essential services for which tanks are simply not a feasible complement. Provision for the segregation of potable reticulated water from storm runoff or other reclaimed water will also have to be planned for very early on, in making existing reserves and anticipated rainwater collections JUST GET SE QUEENSLAND BY.

Undoubtedly the extreme political unpalatability of such measures is something the present, or for that matter any foreseeable alternative elected Queensland government would just love to avoid, as the heirs to the 'Goss-Palaszcuk effect' described by Selwyn Johnston in his OLO article http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=5477 . A very risky, very expensive project of the like of a Burdekin pipeline is just the sort of distraction a government could well seek in avoiding the opprobrium of being responsible for now unavoidable restrictions. You know how the reasoning may go: 'The water in the Burdekin dam is already there today. Forget about the security of future supplies. By the time the dumb public realize there's still a problem, we might have had ten more years in power. And there's always the lucrative consultancies afterwards'. That's why I had to ask those churlish questions about fronting for the government, Peter. Of course I accept that your are not.

Bear also in mind, at any time it might rain, heavily. Perhaps Peter Beattie is out 'doing a RECCE' right now! See http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=5551#72818 as to what RECCE is.

Ludwig, I agree.

Forrest Gummp, you put a lot of excellent effort in, only to get bucketed.

But at times it seems you don't want a solution. It's only a steel pipe, it will not bankrupt us. And why is a water pipeline risky? They built one to Coolgardie in 1890 or so. It works yet. Alluvial gold miners made them of roof iron bashed flat and rolled, circa 1870. This is not fission power.

Your set of anyway essential half-measures will fail, if the rainfall declines as the data suggests is likely. You cannot run the industry of a city of 1.5 million off house roofs, will that not register? Given the inaction and the total inability here to both curb growth and to plan, sans rain there is time for only one thing. To lay this Burdekin pipeline and lay it fast.

You're advocating a committee to discuss re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Beattie is off in cloudland, trying to get some athletics event sent here in who knows what year. And says we are not going to run out (it's not official until it's denied). Yesterday's drop in the combined storage was 0.052 percent. Yesterday was not a Monday. Have you noticed?

By the way all, if recycled water comes through the taps and offends or you still want to have kids or something, unless you live in a cave or or a high rise, you can get your drinking and cooking water off your roof and filter it. Guano filters out fine, ask the scientists on Heron Island.

Order your new t-shirts in advance, at psraven@bigpond.net.au. Or use it to get back and argue privately, anyone. On the front they will say "Water, who needs it?" On the back, "Let them drink beer." Price unkown as yet. With the profits we will build the pipeline. Or at least, aggitate for it. Or print your own and go sell them and keep the money. It's the publicity we need. Thanks to Colinsett.

Peter.

Peter,
You say "But at times it seems you don't want a solution." I said in relation to SEQ water supply, at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=5477#70515 , "..... My post above strove to suggest something positive by way of possible solution, rather than just offering empty [albeit so very well deserved] criticism of now all too obvious policy failings. I now realize a solution to the shortage is not really wanted."

When I said 'not wanted', I meant by government. A solution is wanted by the public. Your proposal to take water from the Burdekin using conventional pipeline engineering appears to offer the sort of solution the public in the past has reasonably expected: uncontaminated water in sufficient quantity to meet present and projected requirements at historic rates of usage. One problem is that this time it will be very expensive to do, and may only offer a short-term fix if dry conditions come to prevail in the Burdekin catchment.

A long-term solution requires fundamental change to waste water disposal practices. Government appears to have known this for many years.

It appears the tactic was to have been to deliberately cancel planned dam construction, allow population growth to erode storage reserves, and at the end force the recycling of waste water into the reticulated supply during a time of seemingly natural shortage at top retail prices, in the process concealing the true cost of proper waste water disposal and past neglect. Due to the apparently deliberate delay instituted to help force recycling upon an unwilling public, in circumstances of continuing drought SEQ is now faced with running right out, even if recycling can be put in place in time! In short, in aggregate, recent successive governments have over-done it, and the State now faces potential disaster.

A dramatic change in management is required. As Ludwig has said, "It could be a matter of the coherence of society in SEQ." Fortunately, the Governor may appoint whomsoever she will to a ministry. Perhaps she should consider co-opting the best talent in the community.

Peter,

In your OLO article dated 16 March 2007 you say: "Based on the percentage presently left in the three main dams and the weekly decline, Brisbane seems to have about 18 months of water left, if it does not rain hard."

In your article to the Brisbane Institute dated 16 February 2006, see http://www.brisinst.org.au/resources/brisbane_institute_water_crisis.html , you made the following statement: "Nine months is not what the government is saying, but we do appear to be using one third of the total storage capacity each year. Thus we may only have about 25 percent of capacity available in reality and, even with water saving and sporadic rain, nine months seems a fair estimate."

In your post of Wednesday 21 March on this discussion thread you say: "Yesterday's drop in the combined storage was 0.052 percent." At that rate of consumption, without any replenishment more than is presently occurring, it would seem that there is notionally around 200 days supply left. Say eight months. So which is it, eight or eighteen? Has there been more rain between February 2006 and March 2007 than originally anticipated when you wrote the Brisbane Institute article, or do anticipated Level 5 or 6 restrictions buy the extra time?

When your illustration in the Brisbane Institute article, 'The Underlying Pattern', a graph of Brisbane rainfall 1840-2004, is taken into account, it seems hard to believe that government would not have been aware over the last 20 years of the apparent 'rolling wave' and Brisbane's present position in relation to it. It seems incredible that any government could have allowed reserves to have dropped to only around 8-9 months without having made plans to alleviate the shortage. I, for one, don't believe it. A contingency plan must have been in existence for quite some time that if it hasn't rained by, as you suggest, April 2007, the Burdekin pipeline will be built at breakneck speed. It seems the government may have deliberately intended to leave no alternative!

SunWater is the government owned corporation managing the Boyne River (primary storage for Tarong power station), North Pine, Somerset, and Wivenhoe dams. SunWater has also built the existing Burdekin pipeline network in NQ, the last sections of which are all but completed. Approval of a 1000 Km Burdekin - SEQ pipeline at this time would seem to dovetail nicely with SunWater's about-to-become-idle pipeline construction capabilities and expertise.

SunWater's interests, not the least of which is getting the best possible commercial return for its water, would seem well served by being able to divert Burdekin water, for which it cannot presently maximise its sales, to SEQ where it currently has insufficient water to meet demand, and prospects of running right out. It could profit from both the pipeline construction, and the sale of the water. All very good for SunWater.

Not so good for those in North Queensland for whose security of supply the Burdekin dam, completed in 1987, was built. The second post on this thread advises it is only two years since this storage was nearly empty.

Nor so good for the SEQ users of water, who under this proposal are faced with a price increase from $0.96/Kl to at least $2.40/Kl, if not to $6/Kl. With a Burdekin pipeline once approved, such high price will continue to have to be paid into the forseeable future even if, following heavy rains, SEQ does not need to use Burdekin water again, for the pipeline itself will still have to be paid for. Likewise if the Burdekin soon again runs dry, the pipeline payments will still have to continue. That's the risk.

A project of this nature is not planned and completed in only 18 months. The government, through SunWater, would have had a Burdekin pipeline contingency plan for SEQ supply for years. It probably simply wants it to look like the proposal came about as a result of an expression of public interest, and thereby escape blame for eighteen years of planned neglect.

There may be a better way.