Bazz, I have never been able to see the point of renewable energy generation, when you had to have a conventional plant, fired up, & running, ready to take over, when conditions required.
To dedicate them to water supply, with no backup, makes sense, although the water would be expensive. It would be equitable if the cost was quarantined to to the water used in that area, however I expect it would find its way onto my power bill. And I don't even get town water.
Remember the Ambulance levy? They could have put it on drivers licences, with equity. To try to hide it, they put it on the power bill, where some pay it 5 times, but many don't pay at all. I hate being so cynical, but I've been trained by experts.

“All this will need to be done before peak oil arrives on the scene in perhaps the next ten years. After that the economy will be too stretched to be able to invest in such large infrastructure projects.”

Bazz, I appreciate your ideas, but rising energy prices will not only make the implementation of such facilities unviable, it will make any existing ones unviable as well, or hugely expensive. And I think peak oil will come home to roost in a much shorter timeframe than the next ten years.

I think we need to abandon all water-provision schemes that are energy-intensive….. and fall back on the old notion of limiting the overall demand (stabilising population), implementing the best water-use efficiency measures we can…..and encouraging a redistribution of population if those measures still fail to cater for the existing populace in towns such as Toowoomba.

The only thing I can add to that, is that the capture or stormwater should be considered a viable option for increasing Toowoomba’s water provision, off of rooves and into tanks and from roads into storage ponds (where does runoff from roads end up now?).

Ludwig wrote:
Bazz, I appreciate your ideas, but rising energy prices will not only make the implementation of such facilities unviable, it will make any existing ones unviable as well, or hugely expensive. And I think peak oil will come home to roost in a much shorter timeframe than the next ten years.
Unquote

That was my point, if the windfarms dedicated to desalination were installed in time the only cost would be maintenance, so rising energy prices would not impact on the plant costs.
At times of sufficient water being available then they could sell electricty to the grid.

BTW, a TV item last night, someone has been studying sunspots and believes that we are into the start of a 500 year dry cycle.

Sounds reasonable Bazz. Thanks for the clarification

Cheers

Why did the council allow more building to go on when they knew the town was running out of water? Surely their job was to ensure that housing and activities remained within the water supply.

Mr Clive Berghofer served as an alderman on Toowoomba City Council from 1973 to 1982 and was Mayor from 1982 till he resigned in 1992.
Mr Ross Miller was Mayor from 1993 to 1996.
Mr Tony Bourke was Mayor from 1997 to 2000.
Ms Di Thorley has been Mayor since the year 2000

Toowoomba citizens should set up an enquiry to determine these Mayors' knowledge of the growing crisis of population overdrawing on local catchment.

They should then sue the guilty parties for everything they have got. Surely there is no more heinous crime than overshooting local water supply. What defense do the advocates of recycling and other complex 'solutions' (none of them permanent) supply for their presumptious disservice to their constituents in expecting:

- farmers to pay more for water (so everyone pays more for food)
- locals to pay more for water ...

Qui bono?

For the benefit of whom? Who was going to make money out of this? Who was going to gather power from it? Who was advocating it? What did they stand to gain?

These are the questions to which the citizens of Toowoomba should demand answers. I would like to know the answers as well.
Is there anyone out there who will give us the low-down?

Yes I do see the warning signs GlenWriter.

Some people believe that the idea of recycling sewage for drinking water came from the Toowoomba City Council. Recycled sewage for drinking water has been the imitative of Government, hand in hand with the water recycling industry. Or should I say hand in pocket!

Toowoomba was a test case for the Government and water futures industry.

It doesn't take an Einstein to realise that in a country such as ours there is BIG money to be made with water futures. Follow the dollar trail!

"There is a massive weight of scientific evidence in favour of the recycling, and all there is against it is a scare campaign based around the 'yuck' factor."

TurnRightThenLeft, if you think there is such a massive weight of evidence to support recycled sewage for dinking purposes then I sure would like to see that evidence.

Point me in the direction because I've done a lot of research on this subject and I can't find any evidence anywhere! The only support comes from the water futures industry itself and that's not good enough for me. I want independent long-term health and environmental impact studies before I'm prepared to drink recycled sewage.

I voted "NO" because I did the research not because of any so-called "YUK" factor. That was the very least of my considerations.

Recycled sewage for household use should be the last resort, not the first option and the majority of Toowoomba citizens voted accordingly.

"Those who develop the technologies, who promote them and stand to profit most from them, are not those who suffer their risks. The analysis of technologies is biased toward their use because the technology promoters generally lack the expertise and the incentive to analyze the risks of the technologies for human health and the environment."— H. Patricia Hynes, The Recurring Silent Spring, Pergamon, New York.ISBN: 0080371175