How irresponsible can a Government be? By that I mean pumping treated sewerage into our existing dams. Properly treated sewerage may be drinkable, but we all know machinery breaks down and humans often fail in their duties.

Just imagine the magnitude of a breakdown of a treatment plant during the night when the attendant falls asleep! What are our leaders or should I say misleaders going to do then? Keep quiet or does Mr Beattie announce on television the next morning “sorry folks, we had a breakdown last night and pumped millions of litres of raw sewerage into our water supply and since in our wisdom we linked all our dams together we don’t have any useable water in the whole of South East Queensland! I suggest all you Queenslanders pack your bags and go on a holiday interstate or overseas for six months while we empty our dams, clean them out and then pray for rain.”

It is the politician’s fault that we are in such trouble concerning our water supply. They encouraged (and still do) too many people to settle into areas where there isn’t sufficient rainfall. Why don’t they show us that they are men, real men and admit that this crisis is at least partly their fault and donate their million-dollar super, which they most definitely did not earn towards an alternative drinking water supply that does not involve treating sewerage? There are many alternatives. Pipelines from areas where there is water, like the one from Perth to Kalgoorlie. Farmers who grow crops using a lot of water should have to relocate to somewhere near Lake Argyle. Paying incentives to businesses to go north. People will soon follow to places where the jobs are.

Isn’t there a politician who has the power and the guts to say those things can be done? A pleasant reward, if the above-mentioned things are put into place, will be that we don’t kill off the tourist industry. I personally know a number of people who say that they will not visit Australia again if they have to drink treated sewerage.

well
until such time when there is a party that represents the people other than themselves this is what you have.

www.tapp.org.au

always looking for members and candidates for the federal election.

Sigh, yet another extremely ill-informed opinion on water recycling. For instance, do you even know what the process is? It involves a number of stages, not just a big filter as you seem to think. First, all the large solids are removed, then it is the organics are removed and it is microfiltered and also passed through a reverse osmosis filter which then removes salts and small molecules, the it is treated with ozonation (activated oxygen) to oxidise any organic molecules that may have gotten through (by this time they are in the parts per trillion range if at all) and THEN it will be pumped about 200 kms to the TOP of the Wivenhoe dam, just near the power station (co-incidence? maybe, maybe not). Then it will take a few weeks under direct sunlight to make it all the way back to the points where the water is picked up by the traditional treatment plants and chlorinated for drinking purposes. It takes a lot of energy and the sewage is treated locally and then the water is pumped, not the the other way around ie the treatment plants are not right next to the dam.

If you have ever seen a large scale filtration plant, then you would realise its laughable (as I do) that you could think that millions of litres of raw sewage could be pumped into the water supply.

Wake up to yourself, there's more crap in that one post than in a billion litres of filtered water.

“There's more crap in that one post than in a billion litres of filtered water.”

Aaaaahaaaa hahahaha. Very funny.
.

Good on Oldie for raising the issue for discussion. But yes I think there are some fundamental flaws in his thinking.

“It is the politician’s fault that we are in such trouble concerning our water supply.”

Yes but not entirely. The community has a responsibility too. There should have been a much greater outcry starting many years ago when this looming crisis first reared its head.

“They encouraged (and still do) too many people to settle into areas where there isn’t sufficient rainfall.”

Yes. And that is their biggest foible of all. The continued facilitation of rapid population growth into critically resource-stressed areas is just whacko. But again, where’s the outrage from the general community? The populace has been far far too blasé.

“There are many alternatives. Pipelines from areas where there is water…”

Yes, especially from the Burdekin Dam. Other parts of the solution are a wide-scale implementation of tanks and the gearing down of population growth if not a moratorium on it in water-stressed areas. Improvements in efficiency of usage, including recycling are also in there. Desalination plants should probably be avoided.

Whether recycled water should go into domestic supplies and hence into drinking water is another question. I think it is quite safe, but I appreciate many peoples’ concerns. And if those concerns exist, even if they are unfounded, then a major problem exists. The issue becomes the level concern itself, not the foundation or lack thereof of that concern.

And one other thing that should be avoided is a major redistribution of population from SEQ, up the Queensland coast or to higher rainfall undeveloped areas in northern Australia, or of population that would have gone to SEQ. We certainly don’t want this water crisis to lead to a massive new wave of human expansion with all its associated problems, in areas that have so far largely escaped its effects.

So we need to get the issue dealt with, with great urgency. And if that means piping water from the Burdekin Dam, then fine.

And of course we need to address the overall issue of population growth in Queensland, and Australia.

I think its about time that the actual plans were made obviously public and freely available and then people could comment and raise concerns about reality rather than malicious fantasy. Pictures and plans on what a recycling plant does would be helpful to dispel some myths about the technology also.

Oldies comments draw an image of gigantic Acme pump hooked up to a big filter and if it breaks while Elmer Fudd's asleep at the desk then we get millions of litres of raw sewage through the pipes (oh noes!). Can't happen.

But we've already gone through the sustainability and alternatives etc, I guess Oldie never bothered to check that. I thought this might actually be a concern on the technology.

What's the bet this is part of that stupid scare campaign that "got Snow" Manners was promising.

I'd be buying a rainwater tank if I was you Oldie....so when the stuff up does happen...and it will...you aren't the one drinking it

Oldie,

You did not deserve the rubbishing you, and the general concerns you raised, got from Bugsy.

The point is not that recycling is a quite technically sophisticated and well thought out process, nor even that it may contain well thought out and intended safeguards in its implementation. It is that before the elections in September 2006 a plebiscite on this issue was promised, and now that promise has been broken.

So what? Just another politician's broken promise. They're two-a-penny. What's different about this one?

The difference is it was made by the State premier. A man who doubtless aspires to go down in history as a man of public integrity. Peter Beattie well knows that if he was to hold a plebiscite, it would be expected of him that its decision would be binding upon his government. He would also know that if a decision had effectively ALREADY been taken to implement recycling of effluent into the reticulated supply storage BEFORE any plebiscite was held, whatever its outcome, his integrity could be called into question. I suggest the premier sees his government already committed to this recycling plan in order to gain enough time to implement the Burdekin pipeline contingency plan, now that SEQ is faced with running right out of reticulated water.

I suggest SEQ is faced with running right out firstly because it has entered a prolonged dry phase in a long-term climate cycle. See the link within this post: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=5616#75114 . Secondly, it is faced with a run-out (yeah, stumping!) because the government DELAYED public commencement of the Burdekin contingency plan in 2005 or 2006, no doubt because this would have focussed attention before the elections upon earlier bad decisions to scrap other dam construction. To try and avoid the feared run-out, Beattie urgently needs the recycled effluent, all of it he can get, for his, and his government's, political survival.

Your, and others, justifiable health concerns just don't rate by comparison.

There may be a better way.

On the contrary, I think the rubbishing of astounding ignorance is eminently justified. The very first sentence reads "pumping treated sewerage into our existing dams" as if it still is sewerage! In fact, but the time it reaches the reverse osmosis stage it is safe enough for smaller local governments to pump it into river systems or our other environments.

There weren't any real health concerns in the original post, just comments on a technology that it most obvious that many people are ignorant of, and yet feel obliged to comment against. This is nothing more than neo-Luddism at its worst. The "you can't trust politicians" line doesn't wash with me either, they are not the guys working at the plant, they just pay the money, OUR money for OUR water. If you want Brisbane to run out of water just so you can sit back and have a good laugh at the governments expense, then by all means say so. But don't pretend it's about real health concerns, if you haven't even taken the time to review the operational plan or understand any of the technology.

Concerns about the ultimate sustainability of development in various populated regions of Australia are valid. Cartoonish caricatures of water quality engineers asleep at the wheel are not.

Take Bugsy's statement as to what is involved in treatment of effluent: "First, all the large solids are removed, then it is the organics are removed and it is microfiltered and also passed through a reverse osmosis filter which then removes salts and small molecules, the it is treated with ozonation (activated oxygen) to oxidise any organic molecules that may have gotten through (by this time they are in the PARTS PER TRILLION range if at all)" .

Compare Bugsy's with the following statements: "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 [xeno estrogens]." (This link, http://www.georgiastrait.org/xenofacts.php , is the source of the quote), and "You get a free sterilization program, from the xeno-estrogens, effective at PARTS PER TRILLION and so unfilterable except by distillation." from OLO contributor Peter Ravenscroft at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=5616#74445 .

I do not pretend to be capable of evaluating this particular concern in the context of the effluent recycling proposal, but it would certainly seem significant concerns, as outlined by Oldie, remain unaddressed.

As a general precaution, recycled water could be kept separate from the reticulated supply storage. The problem with that is that the government cannot expect to get as much for such lower-quality water as it can charge for reticulated potable supply.

What the government does not want talked about in this whole debate is that it has to be just as committed to a form of waste water disposal different to simply that of dumping effluent into the ocean. The dumping of waste water in the ocean may well be a major factor in the exacerbation of drought conditions in SEQ and elsewhere. Making the change will cost money. The easiest way, for the government, is to simply force the recycled effluent back into the reticulated supply where they can get top price for it. That is what they are doing.

At least this question is based on some form of reality. If you have been reading about xeno-estrogens, you will note that they are not estrogen, that which comes from our own bodies and from the pill etc. It comes from degradation of plastics and pollution from leeching of landfills and overuse of pesticides. And they are active at parts per trillion in the body, not in the source.

I do not know why Peter Ravenscroft has said they are unfilterable, because it's actually quite obvious that they are, but you would be getting more of a dose of them from farmers upstream of the Wivenhoe that from a recycling plant. Even though all the water quality scientists I have talked to said they can remove any of these chemicals very effectively and they can be oxidised with ozonation.

But what is quite obvious is that if they do come out the other end, they won't be coming out in anywhere near the concentrations that they went in (ie we won't be concentrating them) and so we won't actually be increasing them in our water supply.

Whether London has effluent in their water supply is not the issue here, the proposal is not to put effluent but purified filtered water of high quality into the water supply. In England they pump it unfiltered sewage with the solids removed directly into the Thames. I guess thats why they added the extra environmental breakdown and dilution step by adding it to the top of the dam, to remove any possible residuals.

It really comes down to a "we don't trust the politicians who have received advice from qualified scientists" mentality. The politicians live here too you know and have families.

As I said, if it comes down to a "we don't trust politicians" thats fine. Just make that perfectly clear. You probably don't have time to understand the science, thats fine. But going off half-cocked with a neo-luddite attitude, on the internet of all places (how ironic is that), is not something that I like to personally entertain.

It seems I, and possibly Oldie, may have misunderstood something, Bugsy.

Did you not say, in your second post on this topic, "I think its about time that the actual plans were made obviously public and freely available and then people could comment and raise concerns about reality rather than malicious fantasy."? That is just it, the actual plans don't seem to have been public and freely available, despite the existence of the internet. If they are, surely links could be provided. Yet you reprove Oldie for not having bothered to check what you imply are available references, while accusing him/her of "astounding ignorance" and "malicious fantasy".

To me you say "But don't pretend it's about real health concerns, if you haven't even taken the time to review the operational plan or understand any of the technology." Where do I review it? You having indicated that the operational plan is not publicly available, it seems unfair, arrogant even, to state that my health concerns are pretended unless I have read it.

As for your claim of my "want[ing] Brisbane to run out of water just so [I] can sit back and have a good laugh at the governments expense", I can only suggest you research my posting history, as in, for example, these threads: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=5477 , http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=256 , http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=5616 , or via the 'Users' facility.

The better way foreshadowed involves construction of a much shorter pipeline from the sea, via Swanbank power station, connecting to the Wivenhoe end of the Tarong power station pipeline. Waste heat from these existing coal fired power stations would be used to reduced-pressure desalinate sea water. The saturated brines would be accumulated for use in solar pondage. Multi-effect humidification could see from 20% to 100% of SEQ water requirements provided from desalination.

Recycled effluent could play its part, too, in providing working fluid for heat exchange at the power stations, and pond blanket water.

Think big!

FFS Forrest, when I wrote "publicly available" I meant on TV or in newspapers and stuff. It seems noone wants to be bothered to learn about the steps and stages etc. or plans on the Queensland Water Commission website.

http://www.qwc.qld.gov.au/HomePage

or if you can't read or follow links then:
http://www.qwc.qld.gov.au/How+is+it+made

The maps for the pipelines are also available:
http://www.qwc.qld.gov.au/Projects+-+South+East+Queensland+Water+Grid

Get your act together people!

SEQ is a high rainfall area, you can get more rain in the tail end of a cyclone than we get in a year.
What about storm water there's a big waste.
You are drinking sewerage water already, do you think animals in the catchment areas go to toilets?.
Most downstream towns on our major rivers drink treated sewerage water from the ones upstream.
Alanpoi

Given our state governments track record my confidence in the integrity of the treatment system is less than it might otherwise be.

Will the drive to make money out of water become a higher priority than public safety?

Will executives in the organisations managing the construction of the plant(s) and overseeing the treatment of water be get performance pays based on the quality of water returned to the system or on the return on investment heading to treasury?

Will they get their positions based on management ability and understanding of the complexities of relaible and safe water treatment or because of their contacts in the ALP?

Treated water should be safe but then electricity networks are not all that difficult to run (if you spend income from them maintaining and growing them), it's not all that difficult to spot dodgy doctors in public hospital unless you are not wanting to listen.

The technology does not scare me, the prospect of Beatty saying yet again that he is sorry, it's not his fault but he will fix it does.

R0bert

I'm with you RObert, I can't think of anything I would trust Beatty, & his lot with, or my local council for that matter. That goes double with my health, or anything out of sight.

Do you remember the NSW government, a few years back, managed to contaminate perfectly good water, just by putting it into their system?

I'm lucky, I don't have town water, but I don't like a large chunk of my tax being used to subsidise those who do. I believe the only fair way to finance SEQ water is full user pays. I can see no reason why the people of the bush should pay for a pipe line to take their water to supply the city.

These totally impractical ideas of pumping water down from the Burdekin, would lead to people cleaning their teeth in Fosters, because it was cheeper. Desal water will be much cheeper.

We have depended on our tanks for 18 years. There was only one period, in 1993 & 4, when it was much dryer than now, when we had to reuse washing machine water. Look after yourself, the service is better, & a damn sight more reliable.

Given the description of the SEQ water grid as "a network of two-way pipelines to connect major bulk water sources in the region" given in the target of Bugsy's third link in his post above, it may prove possible to use this already planned infrastructure to deliver seawater to Swanbank and Tarong power stations. Lead times for this part of a reduced-pressure distillation desalination project using waste heat from electricity generation would be greatly reduced.

At the power stations, multi-effect humidification under reduced pressure would see around 90% of incoming seawater desalinated, and 10% accumulated as the water component of near-saturated brine. Both are valuable products. The brine would be held in solar ponds under fresh blanket water, reaching temperatures of between 50 and 80 degrees C. The blanket water could, but need not necessarily, be recycled water.

The desalinated water produced at Tarong in excess of cooling requirements could be piped to Toowoomba, discharged downstream to Boondooma dam, or returned to Wivenhoe as convenient. The existing pipeline from Wivenhoe delivers to Tarong at the rate of 76 Ml/day, representing around 10% of Brisbane's daily requirement of around 700 Ml. Initially around 68 Ml/day could be recoverable as desalinated product, but waste heat capacity alone would exist to desalinate up to 240 Ml/day at Tarong under reduced-pressure humidification if pipeline capacity was available.

If incoming seawater was preheated in the solar ponds prior to reduced pressure distillation, production of desalinated water could be gradually increased beyond 240 Ml/day at Tarong subject to available pipeline capacity.

Using only the existing pipeline to deliver seawater to Tarong, it would take around 13 years to accumulate sufficient near-saturated brine in around 560 surface Ha of solar pondage to be capable of producing solar generated electricity equivalent to the 1400 Mw generating capacity of the existing coal fired operation.

Everthing here in relation to Tarong would be relevant, pro rata to waste heat available, at Swanbank, except that seawater supply, and the desalinated delivery, pipelines are shorter.

Got my act together, Bugsy.

I have used rainwater stored in tanks as my only water for half my life, most rural people do.
Now I have one tank,no dam or any other water just that single tank about 20.000 liters.
All sewage on my rural quarter acre is treated and pumped back on to my lawn or fruit trees teated in the septic tank.
So I need less water than a city home, the only outside water is used at a car wash.
If every suburban home had a water tank like mine, and had to use it on gardens and car washes we would store as much water on our property's as all our dams.
City's must not drink tank water it is no longer safe if you see what is dropped on your roof you would agree.
Recycle? why not just for a second think of the dead animals that flow down river into the dams now, and the other products of those animals.
A million million roof areas exist to fill our dams thats why we treat water already.

By golly, Belly, I've come close to hijacking the thread with my last post, although I did mention recycled water in the second paragraph! I'd better get back on topic or I conjecture I might upset the Goldbach's! Been up for hours, you know; starting to nod off.

Zzzz ....zzz..z.. after a few years of wall-to-wall Labor governments, the newly-created Safe Subsistence Police evicted Belly from his rural quarter acre block and burned down his unsafe tank-water-supplied dwelling right before his eyes, just for his own good, mind you. I could only imagine the anguish he felt as they put an RFID bracelet on his ankle and escorted him to a rented high-rise urban slum-dwelling where he would do his time under unit-arrest, knowing that he had recommended tanks to all his home-owning fellow-citizens.

Looking on the bright side, though, he was grateful to Malcolm Turnbull for pushing through, in the dying days of the Howard government, the legislation that empowered the government to put up his now vacant land as security for the compulsory reverse-mortgage that he had had to take out to pay the key-money and bond for his new rented government sponsored privately jerry-built urban slum-dwelling! .....zzz..zz...jolt!

Oops. Nodded off there for a moment. Bad dream. Don't recall any trial being held, though: strange, that. Now where was I? Recycled water, that was it.

Apparently, when United Water got the 15 year contract for Adelaide's water supply back in 1995, it was the first such out-sourcing of urban water supply in Australia. Wonder whether they had any provision in the contract for the Murray running out of water? You know, no water in the Murray, no water for Adelaide, nothing to make profit on! With three years on their contract to run, they really needed a RECYCLING contract somewhere else where there was sure to be water on which to make a profit. Where else but Queensland? Drought-stricken one day, privatised the next!

It looked like Veolia Water (the parent of United Water) had landed a life-saving contract (or the promise thereof), when it landed one for that part of the Western Corridor Recycled Water Project that involved operating the recycling of effluent water for Brisbane reticulated supply.

See http://www.westerncorridor.qld.gov.au/sitedocument.aspx?docId=10

It replaced the rapidly drying up prospects of its subsidiary United Water, the outsourcee in SA. Beautiful. Then the other part of the slogan bit them on the backside. You know, 'Queensland, beautiful one day, perfect the next'.

No sooner had Veolia Water grabbed this life-preserver than it began to look like SEQ was going to run out of water to recycle! Following the Bad Attitude expressed by the local yokel Toowoomabanites in their referendum last July, this was all Veolia needed. Perfect! Now they wouldn't necessarily even have recyclate to ram down the banana-benders' throats! Veolia must have been thinking it had killed a chinaman in a previous corporate life!

But you (and Veolia Water) never know your luck in a big city like Brisvegas. Up went the cry 'Never fear, Forrest Gumpp is here.' Another slogan to the rescue! No need to die of thirst on April the first. Forrest will show you how to make sure there will be enough water to recycle, but only if Veolia Water behaves itself and does not try and get BOOzed, contracting on Australia's water supplies. (BOO, an acronym for Build, Own and Operate contracts, a euphemism for a 'sell-out' deal.)

Clearly, the desperation quick-fix of building a pipeline to the Burdekin, much as it is what residents of SEQ want to hear is possible, starts to look more like a Viking raid on other peoples' water that will work very well for Veolia. Only if SEQ continues to face ongoing shortage will Veolia's future be really secure. Prospects of reduced-pressure desalination of seawater using waste heat from power stations, capable of securing Brisbane's water for the foreseeable future, must be a nightmare for Veolia.

Here we have proof smoking is a health hazard, no matter what you smoke.
If we put a pipe along side the one that brings water to the coast for drinking.
And took it just a bit further inland we could recycle our sewage by re using the treated water to grow anything including trees.
Just north then east of a Pacific Highway town called Kew the best hard wood forest you ever saw is run on re treated sewage.
Nature will return the water treated in the best way as rain.
If Newcastle trapped 20% of rain water on its way to the sea during heavy rain, and piped it into say an old open cut mine just about 100 klm inland?
Is the cost more important than our future?
What if we pumped 60%?
Answers to our problems exist Israel is worth a look.
Sitting on our hands taking cheap shots at one political party while amusing some is over looking the fact we need to act.
And if we do not? well that is clear the ratbag idea that tank water is not good overlooks the fact much more than 30% of this country has ever had anything else or is likely to.
I leave the fact that after 21 straight wins Labor still is not seen by some as the voters choice? but can not refrain from laughter!

To answer critics, I would like to say, YES, I don't know much about the process for cleaning sewerage water into drinking water, but to claim that nothing will ever go wrong with the process is absurd. Even trained professional hospital staff forget to sterialise surgical instruments! I for one, a big water drinker, could never get over the thought, when holding a glass of water, is this recycled body fluids of an AIDS sufferer? Whether this is rational or not is irrelevant. As they say, it's the thought that counts!

Yes, we have tank water sometimes. Our local council tells us not to use it for drinking or cooking, but I would definitely use that than recycled sewerage. The sewerage is all yours, and don't complain when you get sick!

One almost has to be glad to be old!

No fool like an old fool. Hey oldie, I don't suppose you are planning on learning about water reclaimation anytime soon eh? You admit that your fears are quite possibly irrational, and yet seem quite unwilling to find out whether or not that is the case. But it doesn't stop you asserting your fear as fact that it is a public health hazard. The analogy of instrument sterilisation applied to this argument is like talking about how beavers are similar to making pancakes. You think someone is accidentally going to forget to sterilise the water you draw from the tap? Thats a good one. You should have written this yesterday, it would have been more appropriate.

Old fella sorry but you are living proof not every thought is true.
If you spent some time looking at the world as it is you would know only in your mind can something happen.
World city's with more people than all Queensland use this treated water.
Like it or not we dump treated and untreated water into the sea and swim in it.
And can you picture our dam water? dead animals and their by products, a big part of farm fertilizers end up in them.
We clean our water now, tank water not clean? in rural Australia it is much sought after.
If you drank bottled water from my visitors home it would be my tank water taken home weekly to refill bottles.
The debate should be about how we use recycled water in good rainfall times.
We can never drought proof this country but we can improve great parts of it not all rainwater should go back to the sea.

Gee, Oldie, it seems you only have to post a few words showing you've some experience of life and human nature, and bang, Bugsy's right on your case! 'No fool like and old fool.' Dear dear.

If it makes you feel any better, I don't find it hard to imagine how something might go wrong and contaminating substances get into a recycled water supply. It could happen as follows:

Go to this link that Bugsy gave us all, http://www.qwc.qld.gov.au/How+is+it+made , and look at the stages labelled 'barrier 3' and 'barrier 4'. Each of these stages involves some sort of filter element or high-tech membrane. These sort of things tend to be relatively expensive consumables in any recycling that ultimately has as its aim recovery of effluent for human consumption. The replacement of these consumables is the area within the system in which, unless the whole operation is run as an open-book contract, profitability is likely to be concealed.

With human nature and commerce involved, there is going to be a motivation for some supplier or user of consumables to insert a cheaper substitute. Unlike with desalination, where their taste buds could tell anyone testing water quality straight away that something is wrong, the tendency will be to rely upon materials specifications as providing ongoing guarantees of product quality. Product testing regimes can be costly, and can themselves become subjected to cost-cutting. A combination of such circumstances could see contaminants that are effective at only parts per trillion making their way into a water supply and remaining undetected for quite some time. Then, upon eventual discovery, after the inevitable disbelief, will come the denial and subsequent cover-up in what will, by then, be an adversarial relationship between contractor and regulatory authority.

Consumers, all the while, remain exposed to the risks such contamination may pose.

For other reasons why introducing recycled effluent into the water supply might not be a good idea, see this link and thread: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=5616#75748 .

All I can say Forrest is that you are good at dreaming up scenarios that have no real basis in reality. Chemicals that are "active at parts per trillion" are active at those concentrations inside the human body. Most of them aren't even part of our wastewater! They are environmental pollutants from plastics, pesticides and other things we generally do not flush down our sewage system. But keep at it man, one day you might actually get somewhere, maybe when you get elected, who knows?

But really, willful ignorance is not be to applauded nor encouraged. Take the AIDS sufferer example, I guess many years of AIDS awareness have passed this old guy by. HIV is one of the less transmissible viruses and cannot live outside of the human body very long, in fact it it needs to be transmitted directly by vital fluids like semen and blood, i.e. having unprotected sex and sharing hypodermic needles. It cannot be transmitted through waste fluids like urine and fecal matter. As viruses go, this is a pretty fragile one. You cannot even get it by directly kissing an AIDS carrier!

But oldie probably wanted to use it because it can conjure up all sorts of stigmas attached to it, especially those associated with gay men and drug users, eww yuck. If this is the level of "debate" that many of the willfully ignorant want to stoop to, then I will waste no time in unloading my 2 cents on them.

That big concrete tank on the hill, you will find them in every town or city.
Each week, day in some cases you can see tests taken back to the lab,it has always been so.
And everything that rain Wash's into our water oil even blood from accident sites continues to be filtered from that water.
Things far worse than human waste.
Can anyone think our water comes from those rare clean mountain streams only?
Facts will remain while the mindless fears continue to be just that.