Qld deputy premier tastes recycled water

2nd November 2008

By David Barbeler



The Queensland deputy premier has toasted the opening of the state’s new water sewage recycling plant by drinking four glasses of the treated water.

Paul Lucas, celebrating the completion of Stage 2A of the western corridor recycled water project on Sunday, said the water had a nice taste.

The water treatment plant at Pinkenba, northwest of Brisbane, will supply purified recycled water to power stations.

By drinking the water, Mr Lucas was trying to reassure Queenslanders that drinking recycled waste water was safe, after one of Australia’s leading infectious disease experts, microbiologist Peter Collignon had expressed concerns.

Professor Collignon, from the Australian National University in Canberra, told The Australian last week that viruses could still slip through the seven-stage purification system and contaminate the water, leading to potentially fatal infections such as encephalitis and heart disease.

While the water Mr Lucas drank had only been through five of the plant’s planned seven-stage purification process, Mr Lucas said it was safe and on par with the water Sydney residents currently drank.

“It will then go up to (Wivenhoe) dam for stage six, then treatment again when it comes out in a drinking supply for stage seven,” Mr Lucas said.

“Early next year, after the rigorous testing program is complete and the safety of purified recycled water has been proven beyond doubt, we will be pumping from our three advanced water-treatment plants to Wivenhoe dam.

“Already we’ve supplied more than 8.5 billion litres of purified recycled water to the power stations, reducing demand on our precious drinking water supplies.

“We now have a total capacity of 182 megalitres a day.”

Mr Lucas said the layered treatment plant was the most advanced in the world.

“It will be tested and certified for six months to meet Australian guidelines for water recycling, water supply and public health amendment regulations,” he said.

Head of the state government’s recycled water expert advisory panel and University of Queensland vice-chancellor Paul Greenfield labelled Prof Collignon’s comments as misleading.

“At the very best they’re misguided, they’re not based on the evidence that has been collected on the Bundamba plant, which has been running for some time,” Prof Greenfield said.
© AAP

Health chief out of loop on recycling



Greg Roberts
November 04, 2008

THE bureaucrat charged with safeguarding the health of Queenslanders was not called on to approve the adding of recycled sewage to the drinking water of the state’s southeast.

The Bligh Government left Queensland Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young out of the approval loop on the Western Corridor Reycled Water Project.

Instead, the scheme was given a health clearance by the Office of the Water Supply Regulator, an arm of the state Department of Natural Resources and Water.

The revelation came as Dr Young’s department admitted it did not know how much hospital waste would be recycled.

Queensland Health said yesterday it was now helping to conduct research to find out how much hospital waste would be in the 60 megalitres of treated sewage a day pumped into Brisbane’s main storage, the Wivenhoe Dam, from February. The daily volume will rise to 230ML later next year.

Queensland Health population health senior director Linda Selvey said her department would be involved in monitoring recycled water to ensure it complied with national safety standards.

“Purified recycled water must meet strict water quality standards put in place by the Office of Water Supply Regulator and monitored by Queensland Health,” Dr Selvey said.

Queensland Health had drawn up standards based on the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines and the Australian Guidelines for Water Recycling.

Recycled sewage will comprise between 10 per cent and 25 per cent of the water supply for the 2.6 million residents of southeast Queensland.

Dr Selvey said the quantity of hospital waste that was dumped into the sewage system — and would therefore be recycled as drinking water — was not known.

Queensland Health was assisting research by the Urban Water Security Research Alliance — a project run jointly by the Queensland Government, the CSIRO and two universities — to determine the level of hospital wastewater discharge.

“These discharges are strictly regulated,” Dr Selvey said.

She said the quantity of waste discharged into the sewage system by hospitals varied daily.

The nature of substances that could be discharged was a matter between each hospital and its sewerage service provider. “Generally speaking”, clinical waste such as cytotox drugs, blood and human tissues could not be poured down the drain.

Australian National University microbiology head Peter Collignon said hospital wastes should not be included in recycled water.

“Hospitals have a high concentration of toxins and bacteria so there is a bigger potential for contamination,” said Professor Collignon, also Canberra Hospital’s infectious diseases director.

He said recycled water in rivers in Europe had resulted in elevated levels of hormones, which had changed the sex of fish.

“We don’t know what the effects on people are but the changes in fish suggest it is not a good idea.”

National guidelines for recycled water stipulate that some hospital contaminants including radionuclides and veterinary and laboratory wastes should not be discharged into sewage that is to be recycled.
Story

Singaporeans drink little recycled sewage



Greg Roberts

November 05, 2008

THE Queensland Government has hailed Singapore as a prime example of the success of introducing recycled sewage to the drinking water supply, but most of the water the island nation derives from recycled sewage is used for industrial and commercial purposes.

The revelation came as it emerged that the Bligh Government was examining ways of reducing flows of hospital wastes to Queensland’s sewerage system.

Recycled sewage will comprise between 10 per cent and 25 per cent of the water supply for the 2.6million residents of southeast Queensland after flows to the Wivenhoe Dam from the Western Corridor Recycled Water Project begin early next year.

Singapore Department of Environment and Water communications manager Joy Tan said less than 1 per cent of the city state’s drinking supply was NEWater, its term for recycled water. Ms Tan said this would rise to no more than 3 per cent over the next three years.

“The primary purpose of NEWater is to supply industrial and commercial customers in Singapore,” Ms Tan said.

“A small percentage of NEWater is also blended with raw water from the reservoirs before undergoing further treatment for supply as drinking water.”

Ms Tan said NEWater was meeting more than 15 per cent of Singapore’s total water needs, but this was primarily because of industrial water savings.

The Queensland Water Commission website says Singapore has been using recycled water since 2003 “for its drinking and industrial supplies”.

The Australian reported yesterday that Queensland Health had no role in approving the Western Corridor project. Nor did Queensland Health know how much hospital waste would be recycled as drinking water after it was dumped into the sewerage system.

The department is assisting the Urban Water Security Research Alliance — a $50million research project involving the Queensland Government, the CSIRO and two universities — to determine the level of hospital waste water discharge.

University of Queensland Advanced Water Management Centre head Jurg Keller said the project would examine the feasibility of removing hospital wastes containing pharmaceuticals from discharges to the sewers.

“The objective is to determine if there is merit in possibly collecting and separately treating this waste water to reduce the overall load of these pharmaceuticals in the waste water stream,” Professor Keller said.

Solid wastes and the leftovers of liquids administered to patients in hospitals were not discharged into the sewers.

“The only contributions to the sewer system are from human excretion of these pharmaceuticals and chemicals,” Professor Keller said.

Deputy Premier Paul Lucas said yesterday the Government would not postpone its plan to introduce recycled water to the region’s drinking supply in February or March.

Recycle sewage ‘as a last resort’

Greg Roberts

November 10, 2008


THE federal agency responsible for establishing national health standards has warned the Queensland Government it should not proceed with its $2.5 billion plan to recycle sewage and industrial waste for drinking water unless it is “absolutely necessary”.

National Health and Medical Research Council water quality advisory committee chairman Don Bursill issued the warning as the Gold Coast City Council launched an investigation into how unsafe recycled waste water was if put into a treatment plant’s drinking water.

Sixty million litres of recycled waste water a day will be pumped to the Wivenhoe Dam, Brisbane’s main drinking water source, from early next year.

The Queensland Government promised in 2006 that recycled water would be used for the drinking supply of the 2.6 million residents of southeast Queensland only as a “last resort”.

Since the undertaking was given, Wivenhoe and other storages in the region have been replenished following good rainfall, but the Government insists recycled water should be introduced now to guarantee future supplies.

Professor Bursill said he supported water recycling, but only if it were absolutely necessary.

“I think that recycling waste water for potable purposes should be a choice of last report,” he said.

“There are opportunities for problems to occur and if it can be avoided, I think it should be. The maintenance of public health should be the primary concern.”

He said the Queensland Government had prepared itself well, accepting the NHMRC’s Australian Water Recycling Guidelines and introducing the Water Supply (Safety and Reliability) Bill. However, the main cause for concern was the potential for human error.

“It is worth reminding people that although technology can achieve recycling for potable purposes, about 80 per cent of the failures that have occurred in conventional water supply systems in affluent countries have been due to human error rather than technology issues,” Professor Bursill said.

Human error was being blamed for a mistake at Gold Coast Water’s Pimpana recycled water plant that resulted in staff drinking inadequately treated waste water.

The general public was not exposed to the water.

Gold Coast Mayor Ron Clarke said a staff member was believed to have been responsible for mixing up waste-water lines at the plant in September.

A pipeline was disconnected on Friday when the problem was uncovered.

Up to 240 employees and visitors who may have drunk water that was not fit for consumption are being contacted to determine if they had suffered any ill effects.

“Somebody has stuffed up and it should have been cross-checked before it happened,” Mr Clarke said.

“If it had happened in the public works, it would have been disastrous. I am told that the checks are there to ensure that cannot happen.”

Public meetings have been called in Brisbane on Saturday and on the Gold Coast on Sunday to protest against the recycled water plan.

Citizens Against Drinking Sewage secretary Aileen Smith said the Queensland Government could give no guarantees that a repeat of the cryptosporidium outbreak in 1993 in the US city of Milwaukee would be avoided.

More than 400,000 people fell ill and 100 died after drinking contaminated water from a treatment plant; the cause was never identified.

Recycled water will account for between 10 per cent and 25 per cent of southeast Queensland’s drinking water, with the Government insisting it will be safe after treatment through a seven-stage process.

Chron.com

Astronauts head for extreme home makeover in space
By MARCIA DUNN AP Aerospace Writer © 2008 The Associated Press
Nov. 9, 2008


CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — The international space station is about to get all the comforts of a modern, high-end, “green” home: a fancy recycling water filter, a new fridge, extra bedrooms, workout equipment and the essential half-bath.

Later this week, space shuttle Endeavour’s seven astronauts will carry up all the frills for more luxurious space station living — and a larger household. Liftoff is set for Friday night.

It will be a home makeover in the extreme. The space station will go from a three-bedroom, one-bath house with kitchenette to a five-bedroom, two-bath house with two kitchenettes and the latest gizmos NASA has to offer.

To be more precise, astronauts will be installing an extra toilet, more sleeping compartments with individual thermostats and laptop hookups, and an exercise machine capable of some 30 routines.

They also will be delivering the essentials of NASA’s first attempt at a closed-loop environmental system in orbit, where almost everything gets recycled. Already, the power on the space station is generated from solar panels.

Most significant is the water recovery system — it will turn urine and condensation into fresh drinking water. The system is essential if NASA is to increase the size of the space station crew from three to six. That switch is supposed to occur by the middle of next year.

Endeavour’s commander, Christopher Ferguson, considers the water system the single most important piece of equipment that he’s delivering. He said the benefits go way beyond the space station — think of all the deep-space exploration made possible once crews are freed of lugging water.

“This is really it, and it has no parallel. I would challenge you to find any other system on the Earth that recycles urine into drinkable water. It’s such a repulsive concept that nobody would even broach it.

“But that day will come on this planet, too, where we’re going to need to have these technologies in place, and this is just a great way to get started.”

Would he drink the stuff?

“Are you crazy? I would never try that,” Ferguson joked. “No, no, no, no, actually, you know what? If they offered me a sample, I would do it.”

Astronaut Donald Pettit, a former space station resident who will help hook up the system, looks at it as one big coffee machine.

“It’s going to take yesterday’s coffee and make it into today’s coffee,” Pettit said.

Hot coffee is no problem in orbit, it’s the cold drinks that are scarce.

The existing space station galley provides hot or warm water — but not cold. The same with food — hot or warm, but nothing cold. Fresh food like apples or onions that go up on Russian supply ships or NASA’s shuttles has to be gobbled up quickly. The lone refrigerator is restricted to science experiments. So the astronauts are quite excited about getting a second refrigerator with the new kitchenette. It will keep drinks cold and food fresh.

“It seems kind of trivial, but six months of lukewarm orange juice can kind of bum you out,” said astronaut Sandra Magnus, who will fly up on Endeavour and move in for 3 1/2 months.

NASA does not expect to get the water generation system up and running before spring. That’s how long it will take to check everything and make sure the recycled water is safe to drink. Until then, the space station crew will continue to use water delivered by the shuttle and unmanned Russian supply ships.

Before Endeavour leaves, urine already collected by space station residents will be flushed through the system and undergo distillation, so recycled water samples can be returned to Earth for analysis. Additional samples will be brought back by another shuttle in February to make absolutely certain the system is working properly.

If everything goes well, the space station will open its doors to six full-time residents next May or June.

The jump in crew size is especially important for the Canadian, European and Japanese astronauts who have been waiting years to live aboard the space station.

“Imagine for a moment that we have an international space station in orbit that we’ve invested in and we don’t have any U.S. crews on board. That’s what the partners live with today,” said Mike Suffredini, NASA’s space station program manager.

Besides providing patriotic public relations, the larger, more diverse crew will boost the amount time spent on scientific research from 10 hours a week — the average now — to 35 hours a week, Suffredini said. Most of the crew’s time is now devoted to upkeep, and the maintenance chores will grow as the 10-year-old space station ages, he noted.

While gussying up the inside of the space station, Endeavour’s astronauts will tackle a greasy, grimy job on the outside. Three of the crew will take turns cleaning and lubricating a jammed solar-wing rotating joint; it’s clogged with metal shavings from grinding parts and hasn’t worked right for more than a year.

___

On the Net:

NASA: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov

Water Recycling -Examples from other Countries

(Queensland Water Commission)

Fact Sheet - Purified Recycled Water (pdf)

Recycled water introduction to be low-key


Robert MacDonald

November 14, 2008

THE Government is counting on science and a softly-softly approach to introduce purified recycled water into dams with as little fuss as possible.
But Queensland Water Commission chief executive officer John Bradley denies there is any effort to sneak under the radar.

“What we’ve tried to do is make information available to people and have it as something that is not under the radar,” he said.

The QWC is relying largely on fact sheets, brochures, stalls in shopping centres, some advertising and stands at big events such as the Ekka, where it handed out 60,000 purified water samples, to build consumer confidence in the safety of recycled water.

Mr Bradley said the commission had received “a really strong and interested response” and “overwhelmingly positive feedback” from people who had tasted samples.

The QWC has also established an expert advisory panel headed by University of Queensland vice-chancellor and chemical engineer Paul Greenfield “to provide advice on technical issues associated with purified recycled water”.

“All the analysis we have seen in terms of scientific expert opinion, not only the expert panel that advises the commission but also independent scientists, is indicating to us this can be a safe and reliable source of supply,” Mr Bradley said.

But he conceded the recent outbreak of anti-recycled-water sentiment might have dented public confidence.

He said previous market research “was showing us strong degrees of community support”.

“We haven’t done any research in the last recent weeks of public debate about this and I wouldn’t be surprised, in view of some of the blatantly false pseudo-science that has been published without rebuttal, to see there has been some impact on public confidence.”

He said it was “absolutely legitimate” to debate the issue and for people to question the safety of purified recycled water.

“We welcome any rational and evidence-based discussion around those issues and we welcome people who have new evidence or new information which goes to the reliability of this water supply source to discuss us with it and put it on the table,” Mr Bradley said.

Adverse Findings on recycled water risks ‘obsolete’


Greg Roberts
November 15, 2008

AUTHORITIES in Queensland have dismissed as obsolete a state government study that concluded there was likely to be a high risk of viruses, bacteria and other contaminants entering the drinking water supply through a recycled waste-water scheme.

The scoping study was commissioned in 2000 by the Queensland Natural Resources Department, when the Beattie government first began considering the recycling option as a solution to the future water needs of the state’s heavily populated southeast.

The Bligh Government has been on the defensive this week over plans to begin pumping recycled industrial effluent and sewage from the Western Corridor Recycled Water Project to Brisbane’s Wivenhoe Dam from early next year.

The Government has said advanced water treatment plants similar to those built in southeast Queensland have been in use overseas for up to 40 years.

The 2000 scoping study, prepared by Queensland Health Scientific Services and the National Centre for Environment Toxicology, was able to draw on the experience overseas.

The study said there would probably be a high risk of people contracting viruses from drinking recycled water. It said 15 genera of bacteria and two genera of fungi were most commonly associated with waste water.

There were also risks in drinking recycled water from parasitic invertebrates, and from hepatotoxins and neurotoxins, which could produce symptoms ranging from mild gastroenteritis to death.

Other potential contaminants included radioactive elements and organic chemicals. Pesticides, including organochlorines that had been banned for health reasons but were environmentally persistent, were another hazard. The study cautioned that little was known about the health implications of drinking recycled water.

“The lack of information in some areas reflects that little is understood of the health impacts without further extensive literature review and scientific study,” it said.

But Queensland Health population health director Linda Selvey said the report was obsolete.

“It should be emphasised that this was a scoping report done eight years ago and referred to potential issues and not to any particular recycling technology,” Dr Selvey said.

“It was not based on technology that became available subsequently that will be used in the western corridor project.”

Dr Selvey said the direct recycling referred to in the report did not have the benefits of the sixth and seventh barriers in the seven-stage treatment process being used in Queensland.

“Bacteria and viruses are effectively eliminated by this process,” she said.

Queensland Water Commission chief executive John Bradley said chemicals and other industrial contaminants would be removed during treatment.

“This technology is used in a number of other places around the world and has been the subject of extensive testing, which confirms its effectiveness in the removal of both biological and chemical contaminants,” Mr Bradley said.
Story

The recycled water debate is back
16th November 2008

MICROBIOLOGIST Peter Collignon says there are a million times more germs in a millilitre of sewage compared to the famously dirty Thames water.

Will two treatment processes block every single one of those million tiny bugs from entering Toowoomba people’s mouths? The Australian National University infectious diseases physician is unconvinced.

“They say there are seven steps (in the process), but really from a virus point of view, they have only added two to the current process - a reverse osmosis membrane and advanced oxidation.”

Speaking from Canberra this week, Prof Collignon told The Chronicle that tests had found reverse osmosis only removed 92 per cent of antibiotics at the Brisbane plant.

While he acknowledges the technology used in the Queensland system is the best in the world, he believes the project’s testing systems are inadequate.

“They need to be much more frequent and accurate. The new technology detects 1% or higher leaks but you have to be able to detect leaks of much lower order of magnitude than that for viral reduction.”

Hospital and industrial waste entering the system posed another concern.

“Heavy metals such as lead, arsenic and solvents that might spill and damage membranes need to be kept out of the system along with medical waste which has a higher concentration of viruses.”

Prof Collignon supports using recycled effluent for industry, as is done in Singapore, but said its addition to drinking supplies should be a last resort.

“Human and machine error has occurred in treatment facilities in Canada, Europe, America and even Canberra, causing thousands of people to get sick,” he said.

He said the only comparable system was used by a town perched on the edge of a desert in Namibia.

“One would hope one does not have to boil water in Australia.”

On October 30, The Australian reported a claim by Australian National University emeritus professor Patrick Troy that it was impossible to remove all biologically active waste molecules from the system.

Later attacked by Premier Anna Bligh over his expertise, Prof Troy refused to comment when contacted by The Chronicle on Thursday.

National Health and Medical Research Council water quality advisory committee chairman Don Bursill was also quoted in The Australian as warning the Queensland Government it should not go ahead with its water recycling plan.

The organisation quickly distanced itself from the comments and Prof Bursill refused to comment to The Chronicle when contacted.

Want to know more?

Recycled sewage safe to drink: expert

Recycled water plan back in the pipeline

Bligh sticks Toowoomba with $112m water bill

Scientist: Recycled water is perfectly safe to drink

Sunday Mail (SA)



Toilet tax proposed by Adelaide University’s Mike Young and Jim McColl

By David Nankervis

November 16, 2008

Hard to digest … householders would be charged to flush the toilet under a radical new plan to save water.

HOUSEHOLDERS would be charged for the amount of water they flushed down the drain under a radical new blueprint to cut consumption, the Sunday Mail reports.

The scheme would replace the current regime which sees sewerage charges based solely on a home’s value and not its waste water output.

A brainchild of two leading water experts, the plan was presented to State Parliament in Adelaide on Friday.

The experts - Adelaide University Water Management Professor Mike Young and CSIRO’s Policy and Economic Research Unit member Jim McColl - will now promote the initiative to other state and federal politicians and experts across the country.

“It would encourage people to reduce their sewerage system output by taking shorter showers, recycling washing machine water or connecting rainwater tanks to internal plumbing to reduce their output and charges,” said Professor Young.

“Some people may go as far as not flushing their toilet as often, as the less sewage you produce the less the rate you pay.”

Professor Young said sewerage pricing needed to be addressed as part of the response to the ongoing water crisis.

“People have been frightened to talk about sewerage because it is yucky stuff, but it is critically important to address it as part of the whole water cycle,” he said.

“We are looking at reforming the way sewerage is priced, and this plan will drive interest in the different ways water is used throughout Australia.”

The reform would see the abolition of the property-based sewerage charge, said Professor Young.

Instead, charges would be pay-as-you-go, based on meter readings taken from homes during winter when little water is needed on gardens.

Those winter readings would then be used as a base to compare household use during the summer months when recycling and conservation are needed most.

The pay-as-you-go rate would give financial savings for those who cut their waste water output.

Professor Young said the new sewerage pricing plan was already used in the US.

“In places like the City of Bellaire, Texas, they do it and the system seems to work,” he said.

“As nearly all of (the homes in) mainland Australia’s cities and towns already have water meters, introduction of a volumetric charge, such as that used in the City of Bellaire, would not be difficult to implement.”

Mr McColl said the plan was needed to address “the crucial issues in water resources”.

“We should be prepared for the (drought) situation we are going through now to occur again, as well as the potential impact of climate change, so we have to act now for the future,” he said.

Professor Young and Mr McColl will promote the plan nationally through Droplet, a newsletter whose 6000 subscribers include politicians, policy specialists and economists.

Water Security Minister Karlene Maywald said the Government was continuing “to consider how best to structure (sewerage) charges”.

But she said property-based charging was considered the most practical and equitable way of sharing the substantial fixed costs of providing services.

Give recycled water to industry ‘and leave our dams alone’

Andrew Fraser
November 17, 2008

MISMANAGEMENT of Queensland’s water resources by governments over the past 50 years was yesterday blamed for the plight of the state’s southeast, where recycled sewage will soon become drinking water.

Recycled water is set to be introduced into Wivenhoe Dam, the main water catchment for southeast Queensland, at the end of February next year, despite the dams now being over 40per cent full.

Citizens Against Drinking Sewage Gold Coast spokeswoman Dahl Cummins told a meeting of 150 people at Bond University yesterday that while some southeast power stations had started using recycled water in the past year, this should have happened earlier.

“If we can turn this around and use recycled water for industry such as power stations and coal mines, they would leave our drinking water alone and our dams would not be depleted as much as they are.”

The method being used in Queensland involves seven stages of refining before it is put into Wivenhoe Dam. Ms Cummins said this method was not used anywhere else in the world.

“In America, it’s treated to tertiary level, and then it’s put in a ground aquifer, so it goes deep underground so nature can disinfect it, naturally.

“What will happen in a dam - which is a closed ecosystem - is that eventually, chemicals will eventually bio-accumulate, and then it will be impossible to get them out of the ecosystem.”

When the Government made the decision to introduce recycled water the dam levels were 22per cent and falling fast, but good rains last summer saw the dams replenished.

Snow Manners, who has campaigned against recycled water, said imposing it without proper debate wasn’t necessary.

“Processing sewerage for drinking has been on the table for over a decade now, but the Government knew the only way that people could accept it was if they were confronted with … some form of catastrophe.”