Sewage to star in water plan By Wendy Frew Environment Reporter July 15, 2005
Toowoomba could be the first city in Australia to serve recycled water to its residents.
A scheme announced by the city's council earlier this month would obtain a third of the city's drinking water from effluent.
The plan gives the lie to NSW Government claims that large-scale water recycling is too difficult and residents won't swallow it. It's just a matter of political will, courage and public education, according to Toowoomba's Mayor, Dianne Thorley.
"If you spend less time worrying about whether you are going to be re-elected and more time thinking with your heart about what you need to do for your community it is a lot easier to make decisions."
Toowoomba's $68 million water plan, which includes sinking additional bores and building a water-treatment plant, comes as NSW proposes building an energy-intensive, $2 billion desalination plant at Kurnell.
The proposal has been widely condemned, from the Prime Minister to green groups, as an expensive and environmentally harmful response to Sydney's water shortage.
The Utilities Minister, Frank Sartor, says people who advocate mass recycling of water "are either hopelessly misinformed or intend to put treated sewage into Sydney's drinking water".
"There is no market for this water. It is not a practical answer," he wrote in the Herald last week. Mr Sartor also told the Herald that research showed that most Sydneysiders did not support repiping treated water into the drinking water system.
Toowoomba's plan involves indirect potable re-use. About 5000 million litres of water will be purified to six-star quality (suitable for kidney dialysis; drinking water is five-star), pumped into Cooby Dam and piped to the city's 130,000 residents.
Direct potable re-use sends treated water directly into a city's water pipes, rather than into a dam or a river.
Councillor Thorley said she did not need to survey residents because after more than two years of tough restrictions they understood the water shortage.
"For those who have a mental block about the water there are [treatment] solutions now that most probably weren't there 15 or 20 years ago," she said.
"You are purifying the water to a better standard than is coming through a lot of city pipelines."
Like Toowoomba, the Goulburn Mulwaree Council has applied to the Federal Government for funds to build a water treatment system that produces drinking-quality water for the town's river and its dam.
Goulburn's long-term aim would be to recycle all of the effluent now going into its sewage-treatment plant, boosting supply by about 60 per cent.
...better standard than is coming through a lot of city pipelines, ...treatment, why not say the V-word, Virotec
in the future Virotec + Bauxsol ==> VB (a golden drop)
=============== The Northern Rivers Echo Main News
Another SCU project has also received a $412,000 Linkage Grant to investigate the use of Bauxsol based grouts in the control of acid rock drainage, which is a major environmental problem in mine sites. ===============
prof received new grants for testing of new products, grouts and shotcretes !
*** LP0562012 Dr MW Clark; Prof DM McConchie; Prof MP Basheer Title: BauxsolTM based grouts and shotcretes for the control of acid rock drainage 2005 : $62,500 2006 : $135,000 2007 : $137,500 2008 : $65,000 Category: 3008 - ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES APA(I) Award(s): 1 Partner Organisation(s) Virotec International Pty. Ltd Administering Institution: Southern Cross University Summary: Acid rock drainage (ARD) occurs where sulphides (mostly pyrite, but also sulphides of other metals) are exposed to oxygen and water; the estimated global liability from ARD is over US$300 billion. There is currently no cost-effective way to prevent the release of acid and heavy metals from exposed sulphide minerals especially at abandoned mine sites. This study investigates the use of BASECONTM transformed bauxite refinery residues (BauxsolTM) to grout waste rock dumps and tailings dams and to develop concretes that can be sprayed on open cut walls and floor to prevent and treat the ARD as it is formed. ***
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