Times Of Drought , Water Recycling , Drinking sewage, Population Controll ?, Bio public warfare??

Greetings all , I hope you are all well.

As most of you know , I am from Australia and i am very proud and happy with that.
However at the moment Australia as a whole is in abit of a water crisis because our dams have not been filling up and therefore we are required to save water and use it only at certain times of the day and certain times of the week.

This water saving initiative has been going on for quite a while now and there recently have been massive disscussions about the issue.

I live in Queensland which is in the North East section of Australia and there has been a massive dissussion and a public vote about a project which the Australian government is putting together.
This mass public vote about this issue has been held in the last few days in a place called Toowoomba which is located in the inland off the queensland coast and city of Brisbane and holds one of our major mass catchment dams. To get a better Idea of the location click here .

The Queensland government has thrown up a proposition, which is the reason the mass votes are being held for, and this proposition of the government is fully backed by the Queensland Premier Peter Beatie,
Beatie has proposed that we as Australia vote for the use of Recycled Water, that is Water that has been pumped our of our houses and in to our drainage and sewer systems to be put into place instead of our drinking water , Some members of the public that i have spoken to are refering to this a Recycled Excrement

In relation to public response on this issue i would say that the majority of Australians DO NOT want this initiative to be put forth however there are people that think it would be a good idea.

I was watching the news today and the reporters were interviewing people after the vote and i recall one of the people interviewed telling the news personell that they want the initiative to be put forth and accepted by the government because the only other way that this problem can be fixed is by building more dams most probably in the areas where it rains more often .
Oddly and somewhat ironic enough though, On the day of the vote it actually rained rather heavily in the little town in inland Queensland.
However i wonder why they wouldnt want more dams built and why they would rather go to far measures such as using this method of saving water.

Now here is why i decided to post this topic in the first place.
Is it possible do you think that this water could prove to be too clean??
And in saying that i mean that if this water were to become too clean and we as a people got used to it then all of a sudden something bad or some sort of bacteria got into the water system and we drank it , Would it make us very ill or maybie even kill us??

I know for a fact that some of the people here ESPECIALLY our sports athletes cannot drink certain countries water because the water in some countries is too dirty for us to drink therefor it makes us sick on the count of our bodies are so used to drinking this "clean water" that our bodies addapt to it and when something forieghn is added our body rejects it and acts in ways that affect our health.

I was thinking about the fact that if a person grows up eating nothing but a strictly healthy diet and then they eat something a little bit greasy then in turn there bodies react to the greasy food and make them ill .

Could this happen with us??

Then i got to thinking that our country has put up a massive state wide campaighn to make people stop using water out of hours which include advertising and agents driving around and fining people that are using a water hose when they are not supposed to be but still they say that our water saving hasnt been increased by a lot. I know this might sound a little out there but i have have had multiple thought running through my mind all day thinking things like , Would they get rid of us to make sure that Australias water supply is safe for the future?
After all Australia is one of the biggest farming countries in the globe and our exportation bussiness is really quite big.
Just a thought ,But last and most importantly

I would like to here your thoughts as the ATS members on this , all views will be respected and looked at from every angle by me and i will not hold anything against any of u fine and groovey people.

Yours faithfully and thank you

Omega85

Errr, Omega, what exactly do they mean when they say they want to use recycled water?

Over here, we always recycle our waste water through water treatment plants. Adding chemicals, removing debris and toxins and so forth.

What do you mean over in Australia? Because recycled water sounds like an okay idea from the Midwest US perspective

i am fairly sure that most countries do this, at least most places in the us. they can do a pretty good job of cleaning the water, but i am not sure if it can be 'too clean'. to me this sounds like a good idea. also where im from, midwest also, they give out fines durring droughts and have people driving around looking for turned on sprinklers. some people get pretty damn sneaky about watering thier plants when this happens. like dressing in all black and watering at 2 am. the neighbours get pissed

Originally posted by DontTreadOnMe
Errr, Omega, what exactly do they mean when they say they want to use recycled water?

Over here, we always recycle our waste water through water treatment plants. Adding chemicals, removing debris and toxins and so forth.

What do you mean over in Australia? Because recycled water sounds like an okay idea from the Midwest US perspective

Agreed, they are horrible to drive by esspecially at night! But man, do you actually think you can always drink water that has never been used by anything before? Purification will rid the water of any waste but I am confused... what exactly DOES Australia do with their waste water if you guys are not re-using it? Dump it somewhere? Please clarify

You're definitely not alone for desalination has caught everyone's attention. Consider if you will the massive constuction going on in the Arabian Gulf that of which is tourism extensive. Accordingly, such places as Shanghai are finding that it is simply faster to get water from the plentiful ocean rather than wrestle with the rest of their nation for water. Hydroponics, telecommuting, lower emission vehicles, and just plain increased efficiency are things that by sheer necessity is rapidily gaining momentum and mostly in competetive Asia. Solar power is the future especially the kind coming out next year whereby the computer controlled parabolic dishes follows the sun for efficiency enough to make it as cheap to build as all the other forms of electricity.

I too live in south east Queensland in Australia and find the whole idea of actually argueing about this issue so perplexing. Recycled water is uses extensively around the world and is really the only option available to help the whole damn planet get back on it's feet. What are we all so arrogant and selfish that we think that we aren't already drinking recycled water in one form or another now??? If you eat vegetable ( they have probably been watered with recycled water), if you drink beer (that has been made with recycled water), most dams are topped up with recycled water from electricity stations and food processing plants, so in effect we are drinking it all ready we just don't realise that we are.
I say bring on the recycled effulent and lets start saving this planet.
Cheers
crash

Purification will rid the water of any waste but I am confused... what exactly DOES Australia do with their waste water if you guys are not re-using it? Dump it somewhere? Please clarify

Like all good, responsible governments of the world do with the stuff they don't want, we dump it in the ocean


quote from www.surfrider.org.au...

Ocean Outfalls - sewers in the surf Ocean outfalls are a major source of ocean pollution. There are currently 141 public sewage outfalls discharging human effluent and industrial waste into the ocean around Australia.

The 141 outfalls have a combined discharge exceeding three billion litres per day.
The largest ocean outfalls are in Sydney (Malabar Outfall - 430 million litres per day/North Head - Manly - 280 million litres per day/Bondi - 130 million litres per day) and Melbourne (Gunnamatta - 250 million litres per day).

FATMAN

Heya Omega! First of all, avoid driving past the plants that "recycle" the water. Stinky!!!

Our drinking water in New Orleans comes through the Mississippi River. I bet you can image how disgusting that river water is by the time it makes it to my city. Alas, we filter it out and have some of the best filtered tap water in the country. The parish next to mine (Jefferson) uses the method that your area is proposing and the water tastes just fine there.

On the other hand, there are still amounts of Cryptosporidiumthat can be found in the water. Your bodies may not be used to such a concentration of this protozoan, so you may be more likely to get it. I researched some Australian websites for it and see that it looks pretty well known and under control though.

Put it to you this way, I stick to bottled water.

Yep, like it's been said, alot of the world recycles it's water,
and nosetly I never thought about a civilised nation not doing so.
I have one question, WHY has'nt Australia been recycling it's water?
The U.N. should fine them for not doing so.