Toowoomba votes NO to drinking ex-sewerage water

The people of Toowoomba have voted a resounding "NO" to the concept of having treated sewerage water in the city's water supply. Over 60% of voters rejected the reclaimed water plan (61.62% voted No). Whilst treated water could instead be used for industrial and other purposes, it appears that most Australians would not want to use that water for human consumption.

Opponents of the reclaimed water plan pointed out that Caboolture Shire has a Water Reclamation Plant, where the water "is treated to meet or exceed Class A recycled water criteria", yet, on this issue, the Caboolture Shire Council's website states that quite clearly that "The recycled water must not be used for drinking".

Local residents joked that if the usage of sewerage water went ahead, then Toowoomba would be destined to be called Poowoomba instead.

Interestingly, a 2004 survey of residents in San Diego (USA) had similar results, with 63% of residents being opposed to drinking reclaimed sewerage water. In the San Diego case, Dave Schubert, a scientist at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, said that the recycled water is commonly disinfected with chlorine to kill bacteria inherent in sewage. Schubert noted that many times, water agencies add too much chlorine, which can cause pipes to corrode and irritate the stomach if ingested; and on other occasions, not enough chlorine is used, which allows bacteria to live and could cause disease. Because of these potential errors, Schubert expressed concern about using reclaimed sewage for human use.

Whilst treatment of sewerage water improves with technology, there are always concerns with "human error" or other outside causes creating problems. For instance, a report from Port Barre, LA (USA) states:
       "A chlorine injector broke down on Dec. 10 at the town's water plant, causing the municipal water supply to exceed the maximum contaminant level of fecal coliform bacteria ... Town officials told the AP that the problem at the treatment plant was fixed, but the order to boil or disinfect water could not be lifted until after tests show the water supply to be safe."

The University of Wisconsin has reported on the findings of Joel Pedersen, a UW-Madison environmental chemist regarding wastewater reclamation plants:
       "While this treatment process has the promise to save an evaporating natural resource, Pedersen points out that little is known about just how well water-reclamation plants remove the pharmaceuticals and hormones that typically are found in sewage.
       "One concern about water that comes from water-reclamation plants," says the Wisconsin scientist, "is that drugs and hormones in this water aren't removed during the treatment process."
       As Pedersen explains, wastewater typically contains any number of pharmaceuticals and hormones that people have either excreted or flushed away for easy disposal. Many times, these chemical compounds remain biologically active, he says, adding that some of them, especially hormones such as estrogen, appear to significantly alter aquatic organisms."

Of concern to many people in Australia is the fact that many water treatment plants dump treated sewerage water into our rivers and oceans, and this ex-sewerage water then flows into the waters used for town consumption. Much of this effluent does not receive full treatment. Effluent outfall even occurs at coastal areas where the public swim, fish, and surf. This is an issue that must be urgently addressed by Australian governments, at both state and federal levels.

The Daily Telegraph reported that "Australian Water Association chief executive Chris Davis said only elected officials, not ill-informed communities, should make decisions on recycled water."

Editorial comment

One aspect of this debate that has hardly been touched upon is the impact of high immigration upon Australian water supplies.

The President of the Australia First Party, Diane Teasdale, has put the issue in a nutshell:
       ""Let them drink Sewerage" is the catchcry of the Mayor of Toowoomba with the common touch - or is that Mayor of Poowoomba?
       It is time for the real Australians to stand up to this insult to our culture. We may be a minority but it is time to tell them clearly that we DO NOT WANT MORE IMMIGRANTS because this problem with a shortage of water shows clearly that we are unable to look after our own adequately - and no more talk of "poo" water, thank you.
       Surely it isn't only members of the Australia First Party who can see clearly that we are fighting for our very survival against those who are happy to see our wonderful culture destroyed forever."

With some areas being overpopulated, there just isn't enough mains water to go around. This is why some areas are looking at using recycled sewerage water for drinking water. There are two main problems here (aside from the cultural and psychological barriers to drinking water derived from other people's sewerage).

Firstly, no matter what systems are in place, there is always the potential for human error, for mistakes to be made. Secondly, some medical and scientific experts maintain that no matter what filtration systems are used, that the full range of viruses cannot be extracted from sewerage water.

Of course, we can build more dams, but that will upset the ecology of the river systems. Also, dams can take water away from farming usage; in those cases, whilst provision of water to cities goes up, agricultural productivity goes down.

Unfortunately, there are those who are so narrow-minded, bigoted, and full of hate against the Australian people, that they continue to push high immigration upon the Australian nation, no matter what the cost. Often it is the same sort of people who pass Multiculturalism laws to try to stop the freedom of speech of Australians who tell the truth about immigration - such Multicultural Nazis care nothing for democracy or for the right of the Australian People to exist.

Some of the advocates of using sewerage water in the town supply became very arrogant during the Toowoomba debate, calling the city's voters "ill-informed" and "whingers". Those who voted "Yes" would, no doubt, be generally as informed on the issue as those who voted "No", but those who don't agree with the post-1960s new-style managerial class are classified as dumb rednecks.

This sort of arrogance has all the hallmarks of the treatment meted out to Pauline Hanson and her supporters. The post-1960s new-style managerial class, also known as the Traitor Class (having been brainwashed by anti-national academics in politically-correct out-of-touch universities into becoming anti-Australian termites), now look down upon ordinary Aussies with contempt and derision, thinking that they "know better" than us, and they are willing to cast democracy aside when it suits their purposes.

The Labor Party's Shadow Minister for Water, Anthony Albanese, believes that local voters should not have been allowed to vote in a referendum as to whether they drink ex-sewerage water or not. He said:
       "The Howard Government’s proposed referendum over water recycling in Toowoomba is a failure of national leadership ... Does today's approach mean all future funding for infrastructure projects will be contingent on a local referendum? This non-decision is a failure of national leadership."

We have to wonder whether Australia will now see very few issues being put to a peoples' referendum, as the new-style managerial class realise that ordinary Australians "can't be trusted" to agree with their ideas. With Toowoomba set as a precedent, there is a possibility that other referendums may be held on putting sewerage water into human drinking supplies, but it is just as possible that some sewerage water advocates may wait a while for the fuss to die down and then slyly slip in what they want, bit-by-bit, so that the change goes almost unnoticed - after all, that's what they did to undermine Australia's traditional immigration policies, ignoring the many calls for a referendum on that issue.

If Australia had a smaller, stable, and sustainable population then we would not be faced with the water shortage problems that we are facing today. A high immigration intake will continue to contribute to water shortage problems, as well as to other infrastructure disasters and shortfalls (such as with urban expansion, road systems, and hospitals).

Liberal-Labor's immigration policies cause social upheaval and are adversely impacting upon our fragile environment.

The question has to be asked:
Do you really want to have to drink ex-sewerage water, just to enable the pro-immigration ideology of Liberal-Labor politicians?