30 MAR 2007 

ACT Govt to examine recycled water concerns

The ACT Health Minister says the Government will examine the health concerns raised by a leading microbiologist over plans to recycle Canberra’s water.

Expert Peter Collignon, from the Australian National University, says introducing recycled water to Canberra’s drinking supply will increase the risk of disease.

Professor Collignon says it is a reasonable option for overseas cities with already polluted supplies, but for Canberra he says it is an unnecessary risk.

“We’ve got all this extra water, when you look at the numbers - why would we possibly go through this expensive recycled water issue?” he said.

ACT Health Minister Katy Gallagher says the Government will look into these issues.

“I think Canberrans are ready for the discussion, but that’s not to predetermine what the outcome will be,” she said.

Water supplier ACTEW is further investigating the proposal and will make final recommendations to the Government in the middle of the year.

30 MAR 2007 

Recycled water risks manageable, says health officer

ACT chief health officer Paul Dugdale says he is confident the territory can manage any risks posed by drinking recycled water if the right technology is in place.

The debate over recycled water intensified this week after infectious diseases expert Peter Collignon warned of the health risks associated with the move.

Dr Dugdale says he is still not convinced recycled water is 100 per cent safe.

But he says Canberra residents will have to trust technology if the ACT Government goes ahead with the proposal.

“There are always risks in any complex system but they can be managed,” he said.

“That’s where my role really comes in, is making sure that the management systems and the design is such so that if those risks of failure of one part of a system actually happens, that you pick it up and it doesn’t cause health problems.”

Dr Dugdale says there is a lot to be learnt from other countries.

“It can be made safe because we’ve got various instances around the world to do it,” he said.

“These days, we have a lot of technology and a lot of scientific expertise.

“So I am confident that there is a solution that can be found.”

30 March 2007   

Recycled water not worth risks

One of our most significant public health improvements was removing sewage from water supplies. Human waste contains numerous viruses, bacteria, protozoans and other microbes that frequently cause disease if ingested. While our sewage will be treated so that it is “safe” to drink, the mechanisms being proposed for this all have potential problems with performance. Thus there is a strong possibility that at times we will contaminate our water supply with disease-causing micro-organisms.

The ACT has large volumes of unused water. Indeed it is a very large net exporter of water to NSW (about 471GL per year). We also currently have one of the best water supplies in Australia (and probably worldwide) from a safety point of view. Currently no human sewage enters our drinking water in our catchments. We are also very fortunate (and unique) in that minimal domestic animal waste enters the water supply because few farms are in our catchments. Most of our current Canberra water is good enough to bottle!

However, if the pore size is so small, I find it difficult to see how these membranes can satisfactorily work without being frequently blocked by larger waste material. Even if such small pore sizes are used, this will still not remove viruses, which are much smaller. Membranes will also not remove drugs passed in urine and faeces that are not broken down (such as oestrogens).

Safety monitoring is planned, presumably by culturing the water and looking at coliform counts. If coliforms (eg E. coli) are present in the treated water this implies faecal contamination (and thus a failure of the system). However, this type of monitoring has problems. Around the world numerous outbreaks with water contaminated with viruses and Cryptosporidiosis have occurred despite low or zero coliform counts. In addition these indicator bacteria take one or two days to grow and identify.

In Canberra we do not need to recycle our waste-water back into our drinking water supply. The current proposal is for initially 9GL of water per year to be recycled into our dams. On average, however, about 120GL per year has been released from our dams into the rivers as environmental flows (46GL) and as spills (75GL). Spills are when dams overflow which has occurred frequently, even in droughts, with the Cotter dam, because of is low storage capacity. This released water is relatively “pristine” from an infection point of view. Why not find ways to withhold 9GL of this water? Is this not a better option than pumping 9GL of very expensively treated waste-water upstream into our reservoirs when we cannot be assured it will always be free of harmful microbes?

Can’t more water from the Cotter dams be transferred if we still have a shortage of water in the Googong dam? Given on average 75GL of water “spills” per year from our dams, surely the amount transferred could be increased to say 20GL per year and avoid the costs and risks of recycling sewage into our water supply.

That, however, would effectively mean that there is no net increase in the water supply for human use. If we did that we will have spent maybe $100 million or more to process and pump water back into our dams, just to let the same amount of water out again! It makes neither environmental nor economic sense.

There is no rice production in the ACT, which means all this water is being used further downstream in the Murrumbidgee river system. If the rice growers down river from Canberra decreased their water usage by just 1 per cent, that would mean that there would be another 19GL available for the rivers.

It does not appear to make sense to spend huge amounts of money recycling waste water and putting this water back into our Canberra drinking water, when at the same time we are releasing “pristine” water from these same dams for environmental flows especially when this released water is effectively being used mainly for irrigation purposes downstream to produce water intensive crops such as rice.

Corbell breaks party ranks ‘I am calling for more caution’

12 April 2007    

Cathy Alexander

Planning Minister Simon Corbell is at loggerheads with his leader Jon Stanhope after breaking party ranks yesterday over recycled water.

Mr Corbell accused his own Government of not being sufficiently cautious about a proposal to put recycled sewage into Canberra’s drinking water.

In reply, Mr Stanhope said he was “surprised” by the claim, and staunchly defended his record on recycled water.

The water spat came on the same day Mr Corbell criticised Mr Stanhope’s method of releasing land for development, and hard on the heels of ALP divisions over hospital parking and busways.

Yesterday’s difference of opinion began when Mr Corbell summoned The Canberra Times to his office to criticise the Government’s push towards using recycled water. He said the practice carried potentially serious health risks and would use too much electricity.

“I’ve realised there’s a need for a more sceptical approach,” he said.

“I’m concerned that the recent water policy is a fait accompli.

“I think as a Government we do need to be more critical of what’s being proposed.

“I am calling for more caution.”

Mr Corbell cited health concerns raised by Canberra Hospital infectious diseases physician Peter Collignon about drinking recycled sewage. Mr Corbell called for a fresh Government inquiry into the issue, focusing on the risks of prescription drugs persisting in the water supply.

He said he had a better solution to Canberra’s water shortage retro-fitting houses with grey-water systems and rainwater tanks to minimise their use of drinking water. The Government could pay for all or part of the cost of $10,000-$15,000 per house.

Mr Stanhope, who as Water Minister has overseen Actew’s $350million recycled water proposal, vigorously rejected any suggestion he would place Canberrans’ health at risk.

“I am surprised that there’s been any suggestion that the Government is not being sufficiently cautious,” he said.

He defended the process by which the recycled water proposal was being evaluated. Actew’s proposal on which the Government will make a final decision later this year is for 9 gigalitres of waste water per year to be purified by microfiltration, reverse osmosis and UV-disinfection, then pumped into an enlarged Cotter Dam.

Mr Stanhope said an independent, expert reference group of highly regarded members was examining the water purification methods from a health perspective. The Government had also sought detailed advice on the economics and environmental impact of recycling water.

A group from Actew and the Government is currently touring the United States inspecting water purification methods.

“Is it seriously suggested that this process won’t provide advice that’s reputable?” Mr Stanhope asked.

He denied that his party-room relationship with Mr Corbell had cooled recently, and said he had always supported Mr Corbell.

Mr Corbell maintained he was not criticising the Chief Minister and said the Government had not made a decision on recycled water yet.

“The Chief Minister’s called for a debate,” he said.

When asked if he wanted to lead the Government, he said, “I think everybody that goes into politics has aspirations of leadership but I’m happy where I am.”

Liberal leader Bill Stefaniak said Mr Corbell’s behaviour yesterday was not common practice and was a sign of tensions between Mr Stanhope and Mr Corbell.

“This open public disagreement clearly indicates there is a rift there,” he said.

“There’s been tensions, there’s been a lot of differences of opinion.”

channelnewsasia.com

Singapore lends expertise in wastewater management to Queensland
By Hasnita A Majid, Channel NewsAsia

Posted: 11 April 2007
      
Related Videos
Singapore lends expertise in wastewater management to Queensland, Australia

SINGAPORE : Singapore’s expertise in the water industry has gained international recognition.

Besides lending its experience in wastewater management to Queensland, Australia, it is also hosting an international event next year where key global players will meet.

Recycled water, known here as NEWater, has helped Singapore ensure its water sustainability.

Now the state of Queensland in Australia will be doing the same.

At a summit on desalination and water re-use in Singapore, a minister from Queensland said by the end of next year, the Australian state will use recycled water as part of drinking water.

It will pump recycled water into its dams and reservoirs, before piping it to homes - similar to what Singapore is doing.

It has been getting advice from Singapore, with one of PUB’s top engineers sitting on its panel of international experts.

Harry Seah from PUB’s Director for Technology Office has been an advisor on Queensland’s Expert Advisory Panel set up by the state’s Water Commission since early this year.

“We’ve been working especially with the PUB on implementation of water recycling in Queensland, using some of their previous expertise and get the NEWater scheme up and running,” says Craig Wallace, Minister for Natural Resources and Water, Queensland, Australia.

“That’s part of my visit - to attend the water summit and to have a look at some of the NEWater factories and see the regulation in use. We’ll certainly be using that expertise and also the expertise Singapore played in rolling out the projects.”

In getting its people to accept the idea, Queensland held a public education programme to address some concerns about using recycled water as well as help residents overcome the “yuck” factor.

“Before the process is explained, some people do have some impressions which are incorrect, and unfortunately are peddled by some people in our community who want to give the wrong impression. But I think the public of Queensland, as the public of Singapore has shown, will be too smart for those peddlers of misinformation,” says Mr Wallace.

“We can demonstrate that the water is pure and clean. It will be a major boost not only for our drinking water supply in south east Queensland but also industrial supplies.”

Mr Wallace says 70% of its population has given the idea the thumbs up.

Queensland has been recycling 13% of its wastewater, but that is primarily used for irrigation of golf courses, sugar cane plantations, pastures and other industry.

This is the first time it is using recycled water for potable use.

The state has been facing acute water shortage as a result of Australia’s worst drought in more than a century.

Besides Queensland, the Australian Capital Territory is also exploring the use of recycled water as part of its drinking supply.

Mr Wallace adds the state will be building an education centre on water recycling, similar to the NEWater Visitor Centre in Bedok, to educate residents and children on the topic.

Meanwhile, Singapore will be hosting another international water event next year.

The Singapore International Water Week, to be held in June, aims to create business and technology networking opportunities among water experts.

There will also be fun-filled water festival that will have activities which bring Singaporeans and the international participants together.

“The highlight of the Singapore Water Week will be an international water prize. It will be awarded to individuals who have applied innovative technologies to solve water problems or implemented effective policies that have significantly improved living conditions,” says Singapore’s Environment and Water Resources Minister Dr Yaacob Ibrahim.

“This prize recognises the real, wide-scale benefits that have been achieved through innovation and effective management.”

Details of the prize will be announced later, but PUB says it will most likely be in cash form, similar to the annual Stockholm Water Prize.

Water is an important resource globally and the Singapore government has identified water and the environment as a key growth sector. It has allocated some $330 million over the next five years to promote R&D in this industry.

The Singapore Desalination and Water Reuse Leadership Summit, which will be on till Thursday, is attended by more than 100 global leaders.

It aims to promote awareness of global issues on water reuse and desalination among participants, and provide a platform to share best practices.

Delegates will also get to tour Singapore’s water recycling plants and visit the NEWater Visitor Centre in Bedok. - CNA /ls

George Negus
SBS Dateline Archives - March 21, 2007

Singapore’s Taste Test

Singapore Contractors Association Limited

APPLICATIONS FOR NEWATER

NEWater is cleaner than potable water. However, it is currently supplied for direct non-potable use. Besides the wafer fabs, companies from the electronics industry, power generation, laundries and concrete batching industry are also using NEWater. Commercial and institutional complexes are using NEWater for air-con cooling. It is also suitable for general washing and landscaping. The price of NEWater will remain competitive with respect to the tariff for potable water for non-potable use. Therefore, customers who switch to NEWater for their non-potable needs can expect to enjoy monetary savings (about 20% - 25%).

As NEWater is for non-potable use, customers will have to provide separate pipework for potable and non-potable water supply within their premises. The standards and requirements for the NEWater pipework is in accordance to the Public Utilities (Water Supply) Regulations and the Singapore Standard CP48: Code of Practice for Water Services (i.e., same as for potable water pipework).

Snow Manners speech to the Capalaba meeting.

Monday, April 30, 2007

Last Friday night dozens of people gathered at the Capalaba Soccer Club to discuss sewage water. We were asked by a number of people to post Snow Manners talk billed as The Ten Lies Used to Promote Sewage Water
Here it is:

Good evening ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to this meeting which has been organized by residents of Brisbane who are concerned about the state governments plan to introduce sewage water into Brisbane’s water supplies.

My name is Snow Manners. I was elected to Toowoomba City Council in October last year after the now famous referendum on drinking recycled water. I stood on a platform strongly oppose to allowing water extracted from a sewage treatment plant being allowed into the city’s drinking water supplies.

The Premier Peter Beattie and Deputy Premier and Minister for Infrastructure, Anna Bligh were invited to attend this evening but have declined, preferring to leave it to the spin doctors and the weak intimidated media to present their arguments for them.

In the seven places in the world where the public has been given the choice about sewage water it has been soundly defeated.

Therefore Peter Beattie, like the Toowoomba Mayor Thorley has adopted the strategy of ramming it in between elections without public consultation.

The issue is divisive and across the country 75% of people oppose it. Those that support it only do so with the strong qualification that we must get water from somewhere . If the dams were full or there were clear alternative supplies then over 90% of people would reject the idea of sourcing city water supply from the sewers.

There are TEN lies used to convince the public to source drinking water from the sewage treatment plant.

The first lie they will tell you is that “It’s done all over the world.”

There is no community on this planet that deliberately sources any appreciable proportion of its water supply from the back end of a sewage treatment plant.

London – No. Thames Water have made it absolutely clear that there is no water reuse scheme in London and that it is a total myth that London tap water has passed through seven sets of kidneys. When the premier visited the UK last month, Thames water made that patently clear to him and referred him to a developing reuse scheme in Essex.

Singapore – No. They have similar equipment to what Beattie proposes but the water is used in industry through a dual pipe reticulation system. You are not allowed to drink it. A tiny amount is put into one reservoir so the multinational corporation promoting it for drinking can say that it is in the water supply. The people of Singapore shun the idea.

California – No. Madonna King on the ABC rang the water authorities and again they denied it. Water Factory 21 has been demolished. There is no recycling happening in California. Under the proposed Orange County Groundwater Recharge system highly treated sewage water is proposed to be injected into the ground behind the sand dunes to prevent seawater intrusion into the aquifers. It may percolate back towards drinking supplies and over time and that eventually it may constitute 5% of the water supply.

Washington – No. The Upper Occoquan reservoir did experience an algae bloom in the late 1970’s due to polluted water coming from sewage treatment plants upstream and introduced advanced water treatment. They are responding to a pollution issue and that is where many of the transsexual fish stories come from.

We have investigated every international instance that has been quoted. None stack up as justification for what this government is doing. If it was done in some other city then why not invite the Mayor of that city to come and talk to us about it, to bring their water test results, to show us their procedures manual and guidelines that govern the process. There is no place.

Some American states are in fact about to implement regulations that prohibit the use of recycled water – even to prohibit toilets being flushed with it.

This lie is a form of peer group pressure. It is exactly the type of pressure that encourages young people to smoke their first joint or pop their first party pill - “go on – everyone else is doing it”. For a government to adopt that strategy and lie to their community shows they are morally bankrupt.

On the basis of that lie opponents to sewage water in Toowoomba adopted the slogan “It’s OK to say NO”.

The second they tell you is “There are no options”

This lie has become an art form. The Premier says that drinking sewage water is an Armageddon solution. He later says we must drink it or die. Most propaganda items about sewage water start with a story about climate change and global catastrophe. The consumer is told that taps will run dry.

It is a scare-mongering campaign of monstrous proportion. The fact of the matter is that we are in a very severe drought and nobody has built water infrastructure for 20 or 30 years. The population drawing on Wivenhoe dam has nearly doubled since the dam was built. It was bound to run out.

Was government waiting in 1990 for membrane technology to be developed 15 years later? Is that why Wolfdene dam was never built?

Of course there are options to drinking sewage water.

Rainwater tanks, grey-water solutions at a household level, reclaimed sewage water for non-drinking purposes in industry, parks, gardens, powerstations and other non-human contact purposes.

Desalination of seawater, underground water, stormwater harvesting, water from the great sand islands, pipelines from the Clarence River or Paradise Dam, build more dams.

Promoters of sewage water over cost the options or label them dangerous.

Toowoomba rejected sewage water then within months four other viable options emerged from the Toowoomba Water Supply Task Force. Toowoomba has not and will not run out of water and will not drink sewage water.

Lie or more accurately propaganda tool number three “Water should be described by its quality not its source”

This is political rubbish to inhibit honest debate. Sewage is sewage. That is where it is proposed to get the water.

Water sources are dam water, bore water, sea water, rain water and in that context sewage water. If you think sewage water is an objectionable source and you don’t like the language then you are in some sort of state of denial about what is being proposed.

Politically correct language has been taken to the ridiculous extreme when you can’t use the term sewage in connection with water sourced from Luggage Point.

Purified Recycled Water is a stupid and dishonest description for water sourced from a sewage treatment plant. The spin doctors have been told to promote ‘purified recycled water’ or PRW to avoid the concept of sewage and the fact that hospitals, funeral homes, paint shops, radiator works, pharmaceuticals and weed killer past the use by date and a host of dead goldfish comprise the sewage that is to be the source of the city’s water.

Until that fact is acknowledged then there can be no honest debate.

Huge lie number four is “It is safe” .

The Queensland Water Commission in its glossy brochure states clearly twice that “Long term health studies confirm the safety record of purified recycled water”.

You would expect that such a categorical statement could be backed up by copies of the at least one ‘Long term Health Study’. I have asked the QWC for specific details of any single such study so I could read it. No study has been forthcoming. The only paper that they are relying on is a paper prepared for the Local Government Association by the University of New South Wales with a specific disclaimer saying

This report has been prepared on behalf of and for the exclusive use of the Local GovernmentAssociation of Queensland (LGAQ), and is subject to and issued in connection with the provisionsof the agreement between the Centre for Water and Waste Technology (CWWT) and the LGAQ. The CWWT accepts no liability or responsibility whatsoever for, or in respect of, any use of, or reliance upon this report by any third party.

It also concludes:While studies undertaken overseas bode well for the safety of recycled water generally, exactly how effectively these studies can be translated to potential Australian schemes is less clear. …Therefore, in order to ensure the full protection of public health, a comprehensive health assessment should be undertaken specifically for any planned Australian scheme.

We cannot therefore rely on that document.

We have published and circulated 500,000 copies a booklet called “Think before you agree to drink” which presents the views of many eminent scientists who have real reservations about drinking sewage water.

Be aware that a 3 - 5 year testing regime was recommended by CSIRO for the Toowoomba project menaing it could not have been on-line before 2010-2012. That safety net is being scrapped for Brisbane.

Also be aware that even Toowoomba’s experts have said 25-29% is “high by world standards and will need detailed review and further studies” - CH2M Hill, National Water Fund submission for funding by Toowoomba City Council.

Why has the Queensland Water Commission published an unsubstantiated lie about the proven safety of sewage water?

How long before we hear an apologetic Premier saying, as he said this week about the unqualified doctors in Cairns, “I thought we had all the checks and balances in place but they don’t seem to have worked”.

There are no Guidelines in Australia or the world covering the process of drinking water sourced from sewage.

Lie Number five “It’s good for the environment”

The environment propaganda begins with a tale about global warming and climate change to raise a feeling of Al Gore imposed guilt within a population trained from birth to consume the worlds resources.

They use environmentally friendly terms – such as recycled.

They condemn dams and say nature recycles water and all water is recycled. And finish by saying purified recycled water mimics the natural water cycle.

Absolute rubbish. Extracting water from sewage is energy intensive, environmentally damaging and nothing to do with nature.

Ask about the disposal of the concentrated toxic waste and salt disposal. In Toowoomba we found that over 1000 acres of evaporation ponds were needed to deal with the waste stream.

This contains all the chemicals that they misleadingly assure us can’t get back to the dam.There is nothing natural or environmentally friendly about purified recycled water.

Lie Number 6 “It’s the cheapest option”

It is the cheap and nasty option that allows the future privatisation of water supply profitably selling the same water back to consumers time after time. But it is not a viable solution if you account properly for the social, environmental and economic costs.

The economic damage when Asian tourism declines or food and beverage manufacturers can no longer access markets because competitors play on the recycled water component. The social cost of a community buying bottled water because they don’t want sewage water in their taps and the effect on disadvantaged socio economic groups.

The cost of running the system over a long period is unproven. What are the costs of membrane replacement, electricity, oxidation, ultraviolet disinfection and maintenance.

Lie Number 7 is that everyone supports it

We hear so much about how much public support there is when all scientific research and obviously the Toowoomba Vote and the San Diego Vote show that generally 70% of people are firmly opposed.

The idea is to make each individual feel they are out of step with the majority view and it tends to keep people quiet.

Believe me – if you are opposed to the idea then you are part of the great majority. 70-80% of the population are opposed to sewage water. You are being manipulated.

In Toowoomba the government became obsessed with feigned polls to the point where they polled classes of school children and then published those that were a majority in favour and ignored where a majority was against. Three plumbers were used to beat up a story that the Master Plumbers Association endorsed potable reuse. People attending information sessions were given an entry and exit Yes/No poll. If someone moved from No to Yes during the course of education they were given celebrity status in the local newspaper.

No wonder the sane majority of the community smells a rat.


Lie Number 8 Opposing it shows lack of intellect

This is a strange elitist lie that brands you a ‘luddite’ or ‘flat earther’ if you question the science or implementation.

Anna Bligh has tried to beat me up in Parliament calling the booklet think before you agree to drink “the most intellectually dishonest document she has ever read”.

She even called a special press conference just for the purpose of telling people to put the booklet in the bin and call me names. Did she raise one single rational argument against it. No.

It doesn’t worry me to be attacked by a politician but it does have the effect of making scientists and academics opposed to sewage water keep their heads down.

That is why there has been no real debate on the issue.

Lie Number 9 Opponents are ‘scaremongers’

Anyone opposed to a government policy is branded a scare monger especially if they take their opposition into the media and tell the whole community.

For the Premier to say this is an Armageddon solution, or drink it or die or global warming and eternal drouight is upon us is scaremongering used to introduce sewage water.

I am not a scaremongerer for explaining that this process is not proven safe and not economically viable.

The last and greatest lie is that recycling will result in a water supply.

We can’t get any meaningful amount of recycled water when dams are down to 5% as they will be when this scheme is constructed. We need a new source of water.

Check the sewage plant outfalls against the amount of water needed to run a city - deduct the volume needed to carry the waste stream away and you’ll see it doesn’t extend the water supply by any useful amount. It provided no realistic option in Toowoomba and came down to the absurd notion of recyling 6,500 Mgl of water out of 5,000 Mgl of available sewage.

Brisbane is a similar case where recycling may extend the life existing dam water by a few months at best. In Toowoomba they suggested that recycled sewage would allow you to get your garden hoses out but once recycling is introduced it will mean permanent restrictions on outdoor use of water because they want it returned to the sewers.

Don’t accept these lies.

 And so the debate continues……

 
Since Tuesday, Canberra’s drinking water has been pumped from the Murrumbidgee River which contains treated waste water from towns upstream.

 Stuart Khan: Definitely we can see a correlation between concentrations of antibiotics in sewerage and the relative amounts of immune strains of bacteria to those particular antibiotics. Up until now, people have been concerned about the immune strains of antibiotics being developed in the human body, but there’s been very little previous study looking at the sewerage treatment plant, and that’s an environment where we know now that you do see large concentrations of antibiotic drugs, and of course you have large concentrations of bacteria. So the potential for antibiotic strains to form there is significant. [ABC’s Earthbeat First broadcast 5/7/03]
 

    … And so we’re seeing all sorts of different things in snails and fish, and different gastropods, birth, spawning of eggs, and different development processes that are unexpected. The problem at the moment is that these compounds are not easily measured in water, and we haven’t been able to measure these compounds at the sort of significant concentrations that might be physiologically important.

PROFESSOR PETER COLLIGNON: The worry is that there’s certain germs, been a few isolates in Japan and the US, that are resistant to vancomycin, the golden staph germ. That, from our perspective, is a disaster. Here’s one of the most aggressive bacteria we’ve got and we’re in a situation where we may not have an effective antibiotic to kill this germ that in the pre-antibiotic era, if you’d got it in your bloodstream, you had an 80 per cent mortality.

This story is from  The Times
Fertile ground

    * Scientists want to know what’s responsible for high rates of DNA damage in men’s sperm. Health editor Adam Cresswell reports
    * May 05, 2007

RIGHT now is not a great time to be a fish, especially if you happen to inhabit English rivers. About 85 per cent of the water flowing down the rivers in southern England is recycled sewage water. And mysteriously, it seems that more and more of the fish that are swimming in those rivers are female.
Not only that, but if you take one of the dwindling number of male fish and relocate it near to where the outfalls dump the treated sewage into the rivers, they often seem to change their gender and turn into females.

Experts have analysed what chemicals in the river water are causing the fish to change sex, and have found ethinyl estradiol – a powerful estrogen, or female hormone, which is the hormonal component of the female contraceptive pill, used by millions of women.

Enough to put you off going for an impromptu dip on your next UK holiday, no doubt, in the admittedly unlikely event you might be so tempted. Fish in Australian rivers don’t face this threat, although whether there is any water for them in the rivers is another matter entirely. But the English fish phenomenon is one of the starkest illustrations of a theory that has sent fertility experts on a scientific clue hunt: that environmental contaminants may lie behind some of the problems affecting men’s sperm.

One of those scientists is John Aitken, professor of biological sciences at the University of Newcastle and director of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Biotechnology and Development.

Aitken is on a quest to see if it’s possible to identify which, if any, environmental contaminants may be to blame – by studying damaged sperm DNA to look for tell-tale fingerprints of the chemicals that caused the damage. Early results suggest the technique is working.

“We can identify the problem: the problem is that one in 20 Australian men is infertile, and nobody knows why,” Aitken says. “We have one of the most rapidly rising rates of testicular cancer in the world, and nobody knows why; and we have high rates of DNA damage in our spermatozoa, and nobody knows why. The proposal is that these things – the testicular cancer, the infertility and the DNA damage – may have an environmental component.”

Problems with sperm and men’s fertility – not necessarily the same thing – have been hitting the headlines recently. Last week The Australian revealed that Danish researchers had reported greatly reduced sperm counts in the first generation of men born after their mothers received fertility treatment. Not only were sperm counts down – by nearly 50 per cent – but the men also had more deformed sperm, fewer sperm that “swam” as they are supposed to, and smaller testes.

Then another study published this week found men with diabetes had increased DNA damage to their sperm. The authors of the study, published online by the journal Human Reproduction, said DNA damage “may impair the reproductive capability of these men”.

Although testicular cancer is rare, and treatment success good, it is particularly traumatic because unlike many other cancers, it tends to strike young men – the median age of onset is just 30.

And more men are getting it. A landmark study by experts from Melbourne’s Peter MacCallum Cancer Institute, published in 1991 in the journal Cancer (1991;68(1):211-219), found rates in Victoria tripled from 1950 to 1985. Data from NSW, Tasmania and Western Australia showed a similar pattern.

Latest Australian figures show that there are now between six and seven testicular cancers per 100,000 people, that it accounts for 1.3 per cent of all cancers, and that a man’s lifetime chance of getting the disease is one in 226. New cases are increasing by about 2 per cent per year, and deaths by nearly 3 per cent.

Aitken says testicular cancer’s status as a disease of young men strips away the reason why a lot of other cancers are more common – that the population as a whole is getting older.

“You can’t say ‘Oh look, we’re all getting older, and that’s why we’re getting more testicular cancer’,” he says. “Testicular cancer … has risen more or less exponentially since the end of the 1940s. So if you ask what happened at the end of the 1940s that would have caused this sudden increase – what happened was that the chemicals industry took off.”

Whether that has anything to do with declining sperm counts is unclear. In fact, Aitken says contrary to the popular belief that sperm counts are declining, there is no proof this is happening. There is limited evidence from some countries, such as Denmark, France, Scotland and Germany of a decline, but figures from elsewhere suggest otherwise.

The picture in Australia is unclear, partly because our records don’t go back far enough, but there is no reason to think sperm counts here are heading south.

“But (the correlation with environmental chemicals and) testicular cancer is very solid now. At least there is circumstantial evidence now to suggest that environmental factors are involved.”

As an example of this circumstantial evidence, Aitken points to the experience in Denmark, where testicular cancer is particularly prevalent. If a Danish man moves to Sweden – a neighbouring Scandinavian country, with much in common – and marries a Swedish woman, children raised in Sweden will have the same risk of testicular cancer as other Swedes, not Danes. “In other words, the testicular cancer rate is typical of the country, not the genetic history of the individuals. That kind of data again suggests that there is a powerful environmental component to these reproductive problems.”

Other experts are researching other potential causes of male infertility.

Associate professor Sarah Robertson, an NHMRC senior research fellow and reproductive biologist at the University of Adelaide, and colleagues have identified a number of molecules in seminal fluid that may also be involved. Some of these are infectious molecules, and one issue experts worldwide are investigating is whether – without even knowing it – men can harbour “sub-clinical” infections of things like cytomegalovirus and some types of herpes and the human papillomavirus, that don’t cause them symptoms but do nevertheless stick a spanner in the reproductive works. “There’s lots of evidence that shows that probably 50 per cent of ‘normal’ men in western countries carry infectious agents in seminal fluid that they are not aware of,” Robertson says.

Aitken’s work involves looking specifically at the DNA in sperm. Finding out what might be causing DNA damage in sperm would also be an important breakthrough. While smoking increases an individual’s risk of lung cancer, if it damages DNA it can send harmful effects tumbling down the generations.

A link between DNA problems in sperm, or other problems with male fertility, and environmental pollutants remains speculation.

Aitken has collaborations with fertility clinics in Sydney and Adelaide, and is collecting sperm samples from men previously identified as having high levels of DNA damage in their sperm cells. The analysis of these samples has already begun, and while Aitken won’t give preliminary details of results, he says the initial findings are “very encouraging”. “Certainly I think this is a feasible approach,” he says.

Aitken’s search is based on the knowledge that when a chemical disrupts DNA, it often leaves “adducts” – traces showing it was there. Usual sperm analysis can only show a sperm’s DNA is damaged, not the cause.

“If it’s smoking that’s damaging the DNA in the spermatozoa of these men, when we look into that DNA we should see adducts – we should see modifications to the DNA that involve … the sorts of organic compounds you find in cigarette smoke. So by looking at the nature of the DNA adducts we should be able to work backwards to the kinds of environmental insult that men have been exposed to. That’s exactly what we are trying to do now.”

Even before any results arrive, the finger of suspicion points at a number of substances.

Environmental estrogens are among the suspects, such as the ethinyl estradiol in English rivers. They have a long half-life – an advantage in a contraceptive, which needs to persist in the body rather than be immediately filtered out. That also means they persists in the environment. Other types of estrogens are called phthalate esters, a type of plasticiser used in food-can linings and many household products, and another is nonylphenol, which is chemically related to nonoxynol-9, a common spermicide. Nonylphenol is a component of household and industrial detergents, use of which shot up from about the 1940s.

Other possible substances include acrylamide – produced during frying, baking or overcooking – and pesticides.

“I’m sure the food that you eat contains DDT; it’s been banned for a long time, but it’s not banned in the countries that the food is coming from,” Aitken says. “And dioxins – the list goes on and on.”

Aitken says his team is “definitely centre-stage” in the hunt for environmental causes of fertility problems. “Very few other laboratories … have the chemistry that we have got to pursue this.”

Purified sewage is unpalatable

Financial Times, 18 April 2007 

Despite growing shortages, there are many options that can be explored before drinking waste.

In March this year, Jim Service, the chairman of water supply company Actew Corporation, and councillors from the Australian city of Canberra dutifully drank bottles of purified sewage water as they unveiled plans to recycle part of the city’s wastewater into tapwater.

Within days, Professor Peter Collignon, director of infectious diseases and microbiology at the Canberra Hospital, wrote an open letter laying out his concerns about the health implications of the scheme.

What assurance could there be, he asked, that treatment would remove all disease-causing bacteria and viruses, as well as hormones and pharmaceutical compounds present in sewage?

It is a good question. As Antoine Frerot, chief executive of Paris-based global water champion Veolia Water, observes: “Louis Pasteur said 150 years ago that we drink 90 per cent of our illnesses. That is why water treatment was created.”

Around the world, water companies and their equipment suppliers insist we have the technology to render sewage safe to drink – but they don’t all guarantee they can pick up hormones or unexpected compounds. “This is an area in which we and others are doing a lot of research,” says Roger Radke, chief executive of Warrendale, Pennsylvania-based Siemens Water Technologies.

Microfiltration through polymer membranes, followed by reverse osmosis through membranes can remove even viruses if a small enough pore size is specified, says Mr Radke, though to drink the water, you had better then pass it under ultra-violet light to be sure to kill microscopic parasites such as cryptosporidium and giardia.

But this adds expense. In reality, the level of treatment is dictated by standards that have been deemed necessary by regulators for the intended use. And when deployed, it typically comes at the back-end of the traditional waste-water treatment process.

In the case of Canberra, waste water would be treated in the conventional way with chemical and bacteriological processes to remove solids and create water of the quality that is typically released back into rivers around the world.

Actew says it is still investigating exactly which processes the water would then undergo before being pumped into the supply reservoir. It says it would expect to use a combination of micro-filtration and ultrafiltration to remove microscopic particles, contaminants and pathogens; reverse osmosis to remove salts, organic compounds and viruses; and ultra-violet disinfection/oxidation to additionally ensure any trace of organic material is destroyed. A final option is to let the water flow through an artificial marshland before joining the reservoir.

After that, the reservoir water would pass through an existing treatment plant before entering the tapwater distribution system.

Canberra, like many Australian towns, is short of water because of a drought that has proved longer, and more severe, than anyone forecast. Last year, residents of Toowoomba, Queensland, rejected proposals for a similar waste water-to-tapwater scheme in a referendum in which health concerns played a key role. The Canberra proposals could prove equally contentious.

Veolia’s Mr Frerot says: “To my knowledge, there are only two places in the world where treated waste water is gradually mixed into tapwater: the town of Windhoek, in Namibia, and Singapore.”

In Windhoek, that is because the river is more polluted than the waste water, he says. In Singapore, it is a political choice designed to reduce depend ence on supplies from neighbouring Malaysia – and accounts for less than 1 per cent of water consumed.

Yet all around the world, city populations consume treated water drawn from rivers that receive treated wastewater from communities further upstream. Just as the citizens of Rouen, in France, drink the waste water of Parisians, the same is true in the River Thames in the UK, the Colorado in the US, and the Rhine in Germany and its neighbours. Without wastewater, these rivers would almost run dry.

Treatment prior to drinking is imperative: a 2003 study found the level of hormones in the River Seine sufficient to change the gender of some of its fish. And a study by the Netherlands government found that using Dutch rainwater even to flush toilets would pose a health risk.

If we are going to drink treated wastewater, says Mr Frerot, the best strategy, where geological conditions permit, is to reinject it into aquifers – as happens in Berlin and Adelaide. The soil acts as a natural filter, and the time-lag provides additional water for abstraction in periods of peak summer demand. Man is merely shortening the natural cycle.

Otherwise the most obvious and economically viable solution, he suggests, is to use treated waste water for industry and irrigation. Orange County, in California, adopted Siemens’ microfiltration and reverse osmosis to treat waste water a decade ago, initially reinjecting it into aquifers, and subsequently selling additional supplies to farmers and industry – which covers the cost of the additional treatment, says Mr Radke.

In Australia and elsewhere, some towns have a second distribution system for “reticulated” water used by householders for garden watering and washing cars.

Meantime, treated sewage water is widely used to supply industry, farms and golf courses, freeing up “natural” supplies for tapwater. Veolia alone has 100 such facilities in France, and others scattered from Honolulu to Durban in South Africa.

Dégremont, a Suez Environment subsidiary, cleans wastewater from Grasse, France’s perfume capital, to bathing standards, says Dégremont chief operating officer Remi Lantier, providing water quality guarantees for fish farms downstream.

Pumping treated waste water into marshlands and reed beds, where sunlight and plants complete the purification, is an option too. But the outfall from even a small town would require a vast swamp to be effective.

The simplest solution for small communities, says Mr Radke, is to buy a Siemens skid-mounted modular unit – the size of a small car – for a few thousand, or tens of thousands of dollars, and turn waste water into irrigation quality water by passing it through membranes.

Dégremont’s Mr Lantier says companies like his can produce ultra-pure water in which the only molecules are H20. He likens the safety issue to that in the nuclear industry, standards are that stringent.

Globally, says Mr Lantier, only 45 per cent of the world’s collected waste water is treated. The most urgent priority is to treat the 55 per cent released untreated. Of that treated, 20m m3 a day is recycled – about 2 per cent. He expects that proportion to triple in coming decades.

Ultimately, says Mr Frerot, the most cost-effective solution to water shortages developing in many towns and cities must surely be to supply such treated waste water for use in industry and irrigation, in place of the tapwater used today. “That would halve the demand for natural water,” he says. “That is what we should do, before talking about drinking waste water.”