Australia's Water Crisis & Recycled Sewage?

Question

I have been thinking a little on the matter of recycled sewage as a means of addressing Sydney and Australia's water crisis. Personally, I think that house hold rain water harvesting initatives combined with green powered desalination are the way to go. But to my question.
Many Sydney-siders will remember the cryptosporidium scare in the late 90's. Where water became undrinkable without household boiling and filtration. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but from memory law suits were relatively unsuccessful during this time (why I'm not sure). However, in the case where this were to happen with recycled sewage water, would the government be exposed to a litigation mine-field.
Could such a mishap result in the shutdown of the water recycling plants? Afterall isn't it easier to argue negligence with the emotionally charged fact that you are drinking effluent water?

Further to my question I should add that I understand that our current water system relies on waterways that contain effluent, animal and plant life already in them. My question is not about the feasibility of drinking the water but rather the ramifications if something were to go wrong.
Because this is an emotionally charged issue it is more likely that people would slam it if something went wrong.

Answer 1

The reality is you are drinking sewage effluent anyway albiet in a very diluted form when the water is taken in from a surface source such as a river. I work in a wastewater treatment plant and believe it or not the effluent we discharge is about 100x cleaner than the river water the drinking water plant pulls into it's intake that it treats for for people to consume. The treatment process has become so much better than in years past. the water is at the end of the process is filtered and chlorinated and then dechlorinated with sulpher dioxide and then discharged to the river. All of the nasty's have effectively been removed. I would rather take this effluent and pipe it straight into a drinking water plant than pull the raw river water out of some of the most polluted rivers in the world...much easier to treat and you would get a more consistant treatment. Crypto needs a food source and polluted rivers are full of it. Treated effluent is not. If you have time take a tour of a drinking water plant or a wastewater treatment facility and see for yourself how the process works. You will feel more at ease once you are educated in how it really works.
Sorry I misunderstood. In the US they had a crypto breakout in Milwaukee in 1993. There were lawsuits filed and damages awarded. People lost their jobs and even the operators on duty were named in the lawsuit. This difference is however they were not drinking effluent from a wastewater plant, but there was operator error. I'm not sure if just the fact drinking water made from effluent would open up a legal minefield. However, if someone gets sick from it and it could be traced to human error, the litigation would be justified. I know the media would have a field day with it. If in the case people became sick in Sydney and the treatment process was robust and they were using the accepted principles and practices, rules and regulations were not broken, and procedures followed, winning a lawsuit might be shaky at best because it is then classified as an "Act of God". You know as well as I do you don't sue God and win. For insurance companies and other firms this is a huge loophole and in order to win a lawsuit like this you have to prove human error somewhere down the line.

Answer 2

Hi!

There's been a whole heap of crap (pardon the pun!) coming out with this idea that there's plans to get us to drink recycled effluent. I agree with the fella above that we are doing that now anyway, but what the real proponents of the plan are suggesting is that we have a second water source installed within our houses, which would be used for tasks such as flushing the toilet and washing clothes. Of course it would still be safe to consume in small quantities as I understand it...but it would make a lot more sense to use less-treated water for toilets, eh?

There are two other things that we could do to reduce our water consumption a whole lot:

1. Subsidise rainwater tank installation for every home in Sydney. The Greens have worked this out to cost about 40% of the cost of a desalinisation plant initially, let alone the massive savings in terms of energy. There's pretty well NO chance of the NSW or federal govts. ever considering the idea of Green power for such a plant!!!!
2. Start accepting and installing composting (or waterless) toilets. This could likewise be subsidised! They're a fine thing for inside a normal house - they don't smell and they come with a bonus - useable compost at the end!!! Check them out...There's a lot of them in use in National Parks now, as the Parks services realised about 10 years ago that they were the answer to a pretty big problem...

Finally...the crypto scare a few years ago made me laugh. What was at the base of this was the fact that the water supply companies had just installed some new detection equipment that was a long way above what they had been using in terms of sensitivity. The crypto was there before - they just hadn't been able to see it!! And the idea that a couple of dead kangaroos were the cause was bollocks...it would have taken about 2000 tonnes of rotten flesh to increase the crypto count to what we were being told!

Hope this helps...

Love and Light,

Jarrah

Answer 3

We already do, yet advances in technologies have made it available to achieve this thoroughly. Sewage is recycled by skill of keeping apart solids from the water, and purified utilising chlorination and enzymes to break micro organism. The solids are dried, floor and then added composted and used as agricultural fertilizer, and frequently categorised 'organic and organic'. The reclaimed water isn't promptly located lower back into the water grant, yet discharged by skill of skill of pipeline into the oceans to permit organic recycling till now being reused in municipal water materials. i'm no longer completely particular of each ingredient, yet it is extra or less the way it particularly works. And, particular I drink faucet water and stay in an city section, so by skill of default I already do. Thank God for Brita!!!

Answer 4

They should wear those suits of the blue eyed Fremen from "children of Doon" and drink their recycled urine from a tube that received the liquid pumped through a filter and into a tube they could suck on. And then get out their worm hooks and ride!