Even if you’re not a local, you might have noticed that it’s been raining in Brisbane a lot recently. Anna Bligh’s taken advantage of fuller dams to execute a backflip on recycled water and to delay the Traveston Dam. These were two issues that the LNP had been making some running on lately, in the first instance aided and abetted by a quite disgraceful campaign about the supposed dangers of water recycling in the pages of, you guessed it, The Australian.
I think the first is bad policy – and it doesn’t give us much hope that Bligh is capable of either holding her nerve in the face of political shenanigans or of practising what she preaches about infrastructure and long term planning. It’s certainly not difficult to envisage the dam levels dropping back down in a few years time, and the whole point of this plan was to ensure continuity of water supply in such an eventuality. The work that has already been done has effectively been wasted.
Traveston is a different kettle of fish. In my view, it was always ill thought out and I’ve long thought it was mainly there to serve as a wedge between Brisbane voters and the Nationals before the 2006 election. I was surprised that Beattie ever went ahead with it after it had played its political purpose. In theory, the change to the scheduling of environmental mitigation measures is a good thing, but environmental concerns as well as its dubious contribution to water supply should actually have seen it canned rather than delayed.
Writing in Crikey today, Richard Farmer appears to think Bligh has executed a cunning political maneouvre. I can’t see it. The delay rather than abandonment of the two initiatives means he’s wrong that “two potential vote winners for the Opposition are now gone”. And the somewhat muted nature of the announcement, which was a lot more confused than Farmer seems to think, only adds to the sense that Bligh is buckling under pressure. Peter Beattie would have made a huge song and dance about it, and apologised from the depths of his being. For those who’ve been watching closely, all this adds to the sense that the political advice Bligh is receiving is questionable at best.
Um, regardless of issues of safety, isn’t it also an expensive thing to run which uses a fair amount of electricity? And for what purpose now: to top up the dams that will soon be at least half full anyway? Sounds like coal being burnt for nothing to me. It’s unfortunate that so much money was spent on something that may not be needed for years, but if it has to be run at all for contractual reasons, or simply to keep the operating expertise here, isn’t it reasonable now to just use it at some minimum rate and divert the small output to an industrial purpose?
This is slightly off topic, but how about Bligh’s plan to start medicating the population by putting poison in the water beginning in December?
Mark, I think the other way around to you on this. The Traveston Dam is an investment in the future in a place where population is growing and where there will be water shortages in the future (unlikely as that seems as I sit here right now!).
By contrast, the concerns about recycled water may be overstated, but they are real, and there is a legitimate case for the “We’ve listened to the people” line that Anna Bligh has learned from the master of it, Peter Beattie.
I think the Premier should have canned the Traveston Dam completely – rather than the partial back down. My guess is they probably want to improve their vote on the Sunshine Coast and maybe even win back Noosa – but then i think a complete backdown is required. Recycled water will be back on the agenda as soon as we run out of water again in SEQ. But it does seem a waste seeing as though several billions has been spent on it. I think Bligh lacks confidence in her own political judgement and relies too heavily on advisors (also seen with the no go on Daylight Saving in the south east). She is also starting to appear to have poor leadership within her own party.
I do think she will still win next year though at an early election. Beattie was a great talker – and trusted his own political judgement – but people were really getting sick of him. Bligh does speak well in the media – and I think people still don’t really know what the LNP wants to do – there is no policy articulation.
Seems ill-considered to me. It may result in a short-term political gain, but what happens when the next Big-Dry hits town?
You can bet that it won’t be seen as such a political coup then.
This is exactly the sort of nonsense Carr was famous for: In the Long-term planning Vs short-term advantage stakes, the decision providing his Government with the greatest immediate political boost won every time. It might have looked like the smart move at the time, but just look where NSW Labor and the State as a whole is now.
This is what happens when you let back-room polling geeks and spin-doctors make controversial decisions for you. Anything attracting the least bit of controversy is left to rot in the too-hard basket.
I thought Bligh was made of better stuff.
I guess she’s just another pollitician. And as we all know, the primary function of any pollie is to get re-elected. Looking after his or her constituents comes, at best, a very poor second.
Anna has probably realized that to implement your policy, one must first actually be in Government, and to that end, never give a sucker (like Borg) an even break.
I predict both projects will be back on the agenda after the next election, no matter who is in government. Does anybody seriously think even the LNP will be able to keep making it rain?
Those who worry about re-cycled water had better not travel to Europe, some parts of the US and Singapore. Thing is; you have to chlorinate the shit out of it (to coin a phrase)and all sorts of other processes before you can use it.
I think that there are far more worrying things about – such as melamine in milk.
Huggy
I heard Anna Bligh in Parliament yesterday and an extended interview with Kelly Higgins-Devine on local ABC yesterday. I’ve heard her again today.
On Traveston I’m taking the story from her at face value. She says the the “independent” (her word) Co-ordinator General advised the the Feds (ie Garrett) would not approve the Traveston project unless some pre-construction work was done to repair the area environmentally to give endangered species a better chance. Apparently activities within the basin, including farming, had damaged the area environmentally in ways Garrett requires them to repair.
I gather that what they need to do has been specified, and Bligh says that the question of the final approval will be resolved one way or the other in 2009. Bligh pointed out that since it started raining a bit again (last August, from memory) Traveston would have filled nine times over.
So land is still being acquired and Bligh is saying in words of two syllables that the dam is delayed, not cancelled.
I think the Greens and the anti-dam folks would be most unwise if they thought they had won. Also it’s in no way a backdown, what happened was outside Bligh’s control.
There is a sinister conspiracy theory that the plan will remain at the bottom of Bligh’s in-basket, as it were, and that Bligh has in fact backed down OR that Garrett is helping her to get it off the agenda so that she can clear the decks for an early election whereupon they will dust it off later and proceed.
I doubt the first – Bligh sounds very determined to go ahead. On the second, it’s possible, but I doubt whether either Bligh or Garrett, let alone both, are that devious.
Nevertheless it might be a good time to have an election with dams and recycling out of play.
Brian, I don’t doubt the facticity of the Coordinator General’s report, but I think it’s the case that the decision is nevertheless largely a political one. And it’s one that’s being bungled – given all the mixed messages being sent out. So I’m not at all sure that it will take these issues out of play for the election, which even if not early, will be upon us soon enough!
I could never understand Queensland’s recycling proposal as to why one would purify the water to the Nth degree and then pump it back into the dams for it to become contaminated once again. Simply bad science and a waste of money.
I can’t understand also why the Government keeps referring to ‘recycled’ water when all the water we drink has been recycled for ever and ever. Doesn’t say much for the understandings of the wider population.
pre-dawn leftist, the LNP accepts that recycled water may be necessary in the event of Armageddon. The argument now is merely at what dam level the recycled water should be added. Its already being used by two power stations and perhaps other uses that everyone accepts will be found.
The other argument is who decides. Bligh has an at least ostensibly independent Water Commission. Borg has said he’ll get rid of it and a Minister will decide.
The Borg has said in their new water policy, which isn’t on their site, that they will build a second desalination plant on Bribie Island.
In this comment and the one above I’m not taking a position, just trying to get the positions of the various players clear.
The “no dams” people and the Greens tend to say that we can do without Traveston, recycling for drinking purposes and desalination, but they are big on rainwater tanks.
On your second para, wpd, imagine drinking the water in Adelaide!
Brian, they are drinking what the Toowoomba voters rejected. Never mind all the wastes produced by towns along the Murray-Darling and their tributaries. Lol.
As for the desal plant at Bribie, it will be well positioned to recycle the outflows from Luggage Point. Incredible!
BTW, I have just heard the Water Commission has over-ruled Bligh on the level at which the ‘recycled’ water will be added to the dams. Perhaps a brave decision by John Bradley – a former Labor staffer.
What I’ve heard on the radio is that the water Commission has said that recycled water should be added to the dams when they fall below 40%. But I’m not sure of what the situation was previously.
Are they confirming their previous stance or were they going to add it whatever the level?
So I’m not sure whether there was in fact an ‘over-rule’.
In any case wasn’t Bligh simply asking a question? Or do we know that she expected a different answer?
Mark, we had that Sunshine Coast bloke, Scott Prosser(?) saying that Bligh was clearing the decks for an early election. Bligh said that she fully expected water to be an issue.
But perhaps it won’t be THE issue, especially if we get a bit more rain.
How can a government allow a dam to be built which will cover an old graveyard. How insensitive! We need good fertile land too and all that would be lost. Now people want their land and homes back, so be it. What a mess. What with fluroide and recycled water, we will all be going mad.
Brian, based on historical footage of John Bradley on the ABC news, there is little doubt that the 40% is a backflip. Bradley originally wanted the additions to be continuous, regardless of water levels and he made a reasonable case for that position.
Clearly, ‘political’ decisions by all concerned.
“a brave decision by John Bradley – a former Labor staffer.” .. Brave decision, my aunt: this time last week Bradley was crowing that the plan would proceed unless Wivenhoe Dam was full. Desparate back-pedal more like, Lucas and Bligh showed him the instruments of torture and he rolled over.
Go the South Brisbane 7-11 Think-Tank & Policy Advice Unit I say.
Mark, when you assert: “The work that has already been done has effectively been wasted.”, that’s a big call, wasted, as opposed to (partly, at least) mothballed, and resurrectable, should “armageddon” arrive.
The figure bandied about (in the Courier) re: what’s been wasted is $2.2 billion, which would fund somewhere between 800 and 1300 new hospital beds, depending on whether you base it on Queensland Health’s PR material for the planned Gold Coast University hospital ( 750 beds for $1.23 bill) or the Sunshine Coast University Hospital (450 beds for $1.21 bill)
So Anna’s apparently wasted $2.2 billion and incurred an opportunity cost of 1000 or so desparately needed hospital beds… not a good look really.
Danny, I disagree with the decision, but the whole simple Courier-Mail style of equation of 2.2 billion = x hospital beds foregone is nonsense, with respect. There’s a difference between capital funding for infrastructure and ongoing operational spending. With hospital beds, you need both – that is to say, the capital cost and the recurrent costs to actually have everything needed to care for patients in them (which involves massive staff and other costs). That’s the reason why there are shiny new wards from time to time with no actual sick people lying in the beds!
It’s a furphy that often comes up in discussions of budgeting, but it should be knocked on the head when it surfaces, because it’s just false.
I hadn’t read the article Mark linked to in the post.
So in summary, Bligh wanted the trigger point lower and the Commission stuck to their guns. It enhances their independence and I don’t see that the episode does Bligh any great harm.
On the news just after I posted earlier Bligh gave as a reason that our water use habits have changed forever. I think she’s right in this and my own feeling is that many people would rather have more restrictions for longer than drink recycled water if the question were put to them in those terms.
So after all that the only thing that has changed is that Garrett has given Bligh some hoops to jump through before Traveston is built. To me there is little doubt that Garrett will then give approval. So the only way of stopping the dam is to vote Bligh out. That seems unlikely.
Mark:
I’d just be following the queensland health,
PR“informing, promoting and communicating initiatives” house style. I wish I was able to quote in your required format (X amount for capital expenditures and Y recurrent servicing expenses etc.), alas I haven’t found have that level of detail for my preferred services delivery spending comparator, health. Maybe I haven’t tried hard enough, if you can point me where you get that info, for any department, I’d be much obliged, I’m genuinely interested to get a handle on how the various granular expenditure terms relate. I too find it frustrating that when trying to find out what they are doing about a problem, such as health, or more accurately, illness, all that is readily available are aggregate line item figures, and, as you point out, infrastructure spend figures. Anna says they’ve been spending on Bricks not Brains, I guess this shows why, it’s makes it easy to pluck an impressive figure out of the air to suggest they’re doing something. But look how hard it was to extract informative details such as “the number of public servants whose jobs are dedicated to media relations”, and the other “40 state government secrets”, out of them.What’s your preferred measure for demonstrating what a $2.2 billion foregone opportunity cost looks like? Education? Do tell, please. Or is it the very idea of conjuring and naming an opportunity cost that you object to as a, somewhat hyperbolicly, “nonsense”. (Aside: Aha, p’raps this is where the term “Bollocks” comes from: (hyper)bolic) Personally I reckon the hysterical Courier Mail “waste” headline, which you seem to be buying into with your assertion “The work that has already been done has effectively been wasted.”, is bollocks, a mischievous equivocation. Maybe it’s more accurately that a considerable proportion of that $2.2 billion worth of work is actually being used, just not at peak scale, and the performence headroom is there as a risk management resource, and as such has not really been wasted at all. Except in the sense, if I might paraphrase you, “Money spent on a fire extinguisher that never gets used is effectively wasted.”
For instance it might be that some proportion of that spend means water can be pumped from the 97% full Hinze dam, via Wivenhoe, to the 91.8% empty, (as of 10 nov), dams of Toowoomba, where they are going on bore water. A part of the $2.2 bill went on a Wivenhoe-Toowoomba pipeline didn’t it, recycled sewage is not the whole Wivenhoe story? But getting such “”informing, promoting and communicating (of) initiatives” is probably too much to hope for from out of the deadly tango between the Gov’t’s PR army for whom old belligerent proprietral secretive habits will die hard, and Teh Papers, who’ll go for the sensationalist headline everytime.
Danny, with health you’d need to know average cost per patient per bed per year. Same diff for kids in schools (except per desk!)… It’s just a basic rule of budgeting that you don’t elide capital and recurrent expenditure. It’s an apples and oranges thing. If you build a road or a dam, you might have to set aside a very small percentage of the capital cost for maintenance, but basically it’s there. If you build a school or a hospital, you need to budget for it to run every year into the future. The capital cost is paid off or amortised over time, but the nurses/doctors/teachers’ etc. salaries still have to be paid. Forever more or less. As I said, that’s why you end up with empty hospital wards. In a way, it’s cheaper to build them than to operate them.
It’s an interesting thing about water. I have a friend who is adamantly opposed to recycled water and flouride. So when they come to my house they fill up a 20 litre container here because we are on tank water.
I regularly point out to (and mock?) them that the recycled water is actually treated to a very high level yet the water off my roof has bird shit, rotting leaves and all sorts of bush junk in it. If you fill a bath it even has an obvious brown tinge.
None of this, of course, sways someone who is so rooted in their position that they don’t see the irony when they exclaim how good my water tastes.
Steve, better the devil you know…? Fear of the unknown can be quite powerful in those that don’t understand the process.
Just like Adelaide tap water
Seriously though if you live in the city the tank water probably has contaminants from air pollution as well (though at least a lot less lead these days).
I’d thought the debate about flouride was long over…. should have enough statistical information from other regions in Australia to see the benefits and any downsides.
Mark:
I’ve managed to find current costs for the aged care services sector, both capital and recurrent expenditure. The Productivity Commission Report on Government Services 2007, says ” the average cost for a residential aged care bed is just over $100 a day”, or $365,000 for a decade, for those that survive that long.
Catholic health Australia the actual capital cost of providing new beds at a new facility now costs about $180,000-$200,000 per bed, as does the AMAQ.
So it’s about $600k for a bed to be built and serviced for a decade, and that “wasted” $2.2 billion could thus have funded the building of something like 3000 aged care places and kept them going for a decade. 10,000 places will be needed in the next 20 years as Queensland further becomes “Australia’s Florida”, per the RedCross, so that 3000 would have dealt with the bulk of problem for the next decade.
Instead of which, in the cascade of opportunity costs, at any one time we have 450 or so hospital beds being taken up because of the shortage of aged care beds, compromising the actual hospitals’ health care mission. But we’re ready in case it ever stops raining again for a long time, which I guess is what Anna is praying for.
Danny, I think you’ll find that aged care is funded by the commonwealth! But remember you need to add the capital and the recurrent costs to work out what those dollars would actually buy!
Aha, the famous commonwealth/state cost-shifting shell game.
My thinking aloud was just to get an idea what sort/scale of civic service proposition is foregone by making a bad infrastructural spending bet of this size, regardless of the which consolidated treasury revenue is expended on it. As I observed in previous comment, it’s difficult to get good straight numbers form the state gov’t, so I used what sufficiency I could get.
Anyway, I was under the impression that in a post GST regime, state treasury money is to a large extent federal money once removed, and making distinctions between state and federal spending is a tad jesuitical, a casuistry. The distinction becomes even more untidy when failings of your suggested federal reponsibility, aged bed provision, result in deficiencies of State mandated service capabilities, hospital beds. And as I alluded to, queensland aged care beds of the next decade will be occupied by tax payers from other states now. Neat quarantining into State and federal is an artifice, you’ve convinced me, abolishing the states is the way to go.
If you follow my ball park math, as above, you’ll find, I’m pretty sure, both components are there: ((100×365)x10) + 200,000 = decade’s running cost + establishment capital on a per bed basis =~ 600,000; 2,200,000,000/ 600,000 =~ 3000 beds, more even.
BTW, I’m not the only one that wondered what 2.2 wasted billions meant in service terms, i see a courier mail letter to the editor today also made the connection between it and forgone health spending. Such silly unsophisticated proles we be, concerned as we are with such “nonsense”.
You don’t need the sarcasm, danny. I was suggesting that the way this sort of thing is normally framed in the papers in nonsense, not trying to be personal.
I got polled last nite for State politics (QLD). Lots of questions about views on various things anlthough, oddly enough, all the questions were about SEQ issues – so has me wondering if it wasn’t internal Labor polling.
Anyhow, questions were like:
OR
AND
So, I’d be pencilling in a poll for January on that one – and clearly, the move on Traviston (and they fact it’s been raining cats and dogs – thus eliminating water as an issue for the election) is all timely.
There was one rather odd question at the end. They wanted to turn quickly to federal politics and I was asked the following:
Say what?
GoTroppo, that sounds very much like it was internal Labor polling.
It’d be good if they’d hurry up and just get it over with. There’s no way even queensland is going to elect a premier who only went to grade ten, then went back to the farm, until he got into parliamant at 21, where’s he’s been ever since, talk about narrow experience of the body politic. Too much like a Jo narrative for a start. There’s no way they’ll be able to organise themselves and policies in two months, even if they had an electable leader. So it’s money for jam for Anna and the bounty crew if she goes as quick as she can, no matter how on the nose the government is. Even Iemma and Kaiser weren’t able to mess up an election with no credible opposition, so Bligh and Kaiser will be a walk in the park. These are tragic times with no effective opposition, these Queensland Tory clowns have to go before it can be improved.
Surely Springborg losing another election will mean he’s put out to pasture, and Qld torydom will be in complete dissaray. Malcolm being fully aware that he will never manifest His Destiny without lots of Queensland seats means he will bite the bullet and reorganise the Libs in Qld into an electorally plausible brand, for his own self interest, a la Gough. If he can pull that sword from that stone, he will be seen to be indeed a miracle worker, and might have a chance at Teh Prize.
Not that it’s likely to affect the overall result (given the number of seats in SEQ), but I’d be hesitant to predict any sort of Labor wins north of Noosa. Up here in Hicksville, Labor is definately on the nose with one problem coming after the other – and it’s pretty well par the course for most other regional centres – let alone rural areas (i.e. water problems in Cloncurry (where they’ve basically run out) and the lack of a noticable reaction from Brisbane).
Of course, if they come cap in hand with a wad of dough, then all bets are off, but I’d be very surprised if the three Labor seats up here would be considered safe at the moment. If they’re going out early then they’d better be cashed up to appeal to the mindset of the local knuckle scrapers.
Oh but they’re making the ‘Curry the (unlikely I know, given it has to be one of the brownest places on earth), poster child for the New Green and Caring qALP.
A 7 million dollar spend up there on a u-beaut water-miserly solar thermal power station, with new-improved graphite, rated to power the whole town, or what will be left of it, will be deployed to bolster their green preference attracting credentials down here. How it plays in the cattleman’s bar of the Post Office hotel is completely irrelevant.
Strange days when a state Nat, Gibson, is going strong on co-operating with the Feds on an ecology issue, GBR care, when the local labor mob insist on going it their own way. Maybe there’s treasury money opportunities in a regulatory regime, like licence-to-farm fees or something.
LP commenter “myriad” once wrote here that she doesn’t trust existing water-recycling technology to truly do the job – I think she was referring to pathogens, but I cannot find the original comment. I’d like to hear more from her about this as it was an informed criticism.
Penny Wong announced today that there will be $20 million for a new water-recycling research centre in Brisbane (prospective host institutions have until February to apply). An opportunity to get rid of the remaining bugs, so to speak?
mitchell, I can’t find myriad’s comment either, but the above quote is from the National Water Commission’s Recycled Water Fact Sheet.
The issued a Media statement today urging consideration of recycled water, no doubt in response to the kerfuffle in Qld.
There is more information on their site especially the material prepared by Jenifer Simpson.
The NWC make the point that downstream communities draw on the effluent of upstream communities all over the world. On local radio here yesterday Dr Karl said it was perfectly OK and said that recycled water is better than rainwater, citing for example acid content found in rain in the US and Europe.
Since Friday there’s been a number of articles in The Courier Mail, The Sunday Mail (not online) and this segment from Stateline Queensland.
The CM scribblers (Craig Johnstone, Robert MacDonald and Steven Wardill) adopted an annoying and I think quite reprehensible sneering tone. They don’t appear to understand that before the State Government took a hand the provision of water was a local government responsibility. After giving the thing a shake, planning infrastructure out to 2050, finding and committing $9 billion dollars for the necessary urgent works and then bringing the projects in on time and on budget deserves no credit, it seems. The latter is just something that happened.
Setting up the Qld Water Commission was also, I think, a good initiative. I’m also of the opinion that they do a good job, and that includes Elizabeth Nosworthy as chair.
Anyway this is what I think happened.
In 2007 the QWS suggested 40% as the trigger point before adding PRW (purified recycled water) to the dams. But recently they have been talking about the notion of operating the facility full time. It is more efficient that way and you retain the skills and protocols rather than having to crank them up from time to time.
Meanwhile there was some negative stirring in the media, firstly I think from a professor who was substantively a town planner, and then some worrying stuff from a microbiologist who in truth probably didn’t know much about water purification. Surveys showed declining popular support, from 70% down to 56% and there hadn’t even been a decent scare campaign yet.
Paul Williams (Griffith) reckons that Bligh wanted the trigger reduced to 30%, which would take the issue out of play for a late 2009 election. She didn’t get it, he reckons because the QWS decided to show some balls in the face of Springborg’s criticism that they lacked independence.
The QWS haven’t given a reason, but I guess they compromised on their preferred position because they lacked political support and were doing their own polling of public views.
I’ve been reading their Draft SEQ Water Strategy, downloadable from here. Frankly, the amounts to be gained from PRW are far from trivial (more in the first instance than from Traveston Stage 1) and it’s cheaper than either desalination or tankwater.
Another advantage is that it is environmentally friendly. The tons of phosphorous put into Moreton Bay are quite significant and, btw, the world is running out of phosphorus from traditional sources for making things like fertilizer.
So the less crap we put in the Bay the better. I’m grateful that QWS has for now held the line and demonstrated why some things should not be decided by politicians.
On Statewide in Victoria on Friday night we had Brumby telling us that Victoria would not sully their pure water from the world’s cleanest catchment with recycled water (despite the fact that AAA, pathogen free water is technically feasible and relatively cheap). Yet, at the same time he is prepared to shandy it with AAA water from a desal. plant taking in “pure seawater”. Go figure.
I wouldn’t p*** on the bugger if he was on fire – saving it for the lemon tree. It’s a drought, you know.
GoTroppo (33)
Oh ye of little faith in
pork barrelling before an election… the goodness of heart, generosity of spirit, and selflessness of service on the part of the Queenslandbranch of the ALPGovernment: All you had to do was ask, clearly Anna reads LP, and right on cue She:In the meantime water will be hauled in for $400,000 a month. There’s an encumbent Labor Member, she inherited an extremely safe seat, and knows how to work the electoral room after doing three terms in local council before being Tony McGrady’s electoral officer. McGrady must have set some sort of record for being on the democracratic representative payroll, from 1973 to 2006 in way role or another, so Ms Kiernan has learnt from a parish pump expert, even including a stint as a Mt Isa mines, now Xstrata, PR officer. MInd you the the Mt Isa lead-poisoned families vs Xstrata court case, which may expose a coverup, with council an state gov’t complicity, could test Betty’s PR skills, but she’s got herslf on the “Living with Lead” PR damage control comittee executive, along with reps from all the other likely careless-of-duty culprits, the mine, the council, qld health, and the epa. It appears the problem was known about from back in the 80’s, and got sat on.
Hi Mitchell
sorry, only just say you looking for me on the other thread.
I’m afraid my reply here is going to be a bit of a squib. Recalling the dark dim past of when I commented here on recylced water, at the time I was working in the thick of that policy area. I’ve since shifted jobs & policy areas completely (from env’l policy with a focus on water to now working in multicultural affairs) and it’s making it a bit hard for me to remember. Crucially, I’m no longer getting the information streams relevant to this area that I was, and the science and evidence is pretty dynamic for recycled water.
So FWIW, my personal position on recycled water is that it’s a good thing *if* we can focus not only on having ‘cleaning systems’ for it that are capable of handling the vast, diverse and increasingly un-studied and sophisticated substances that make their way into the water cycle courtesy of us; *and* we also focus on commensurately reducing those wastes & byproducts.
Basically humans now produce about 100,000 chemicals that haven’t been tested individually for their impacts, nor in combination to ascertain what they do long-term to our health and environmental health. Where that intersects with recycling water is being able to design methods that can adequately remove them all from the water stream. A good example that comes to mind right now is that the EU is in the process of banning / phasing out yet another range of chemicals because they are endocrine disruptors and/or also cause gender distortions (or more accurately sex distortions- ie I don’t think male fish start thinking they are a woman, I think they change sex!). Many of these chemicals have been considered benign, and therefore aren’t necessarily examined as markers for the success of water cleaning systems etc. for recycling. So you have a nexus between what we regard as toxic and therefore screen for (in both senses), what is toxic but we don’t screen for, and whether our water cleaning systems can adequately cope.
If you go to systems that utterly ‘clean’ recycled water to try & remove everything, well you’ll be left with basically distilled water, which means you remove a valuable source of micronutrients including minerals that people need for their health (remember why we added flouride to water); and adding them back in afterwards is expensive and well, silly.
IMHO, if we want to be able to recycle water, which would be a good aim, we need to radically clean up our polluting and wasteful ways, that are heavily reliant on using our water cycle as a waste sink. One possible solution might be household level recycling systems (drink your own poo!), but that means trusting householders to maintain them – a favourite nightmare of public health officials – and also doesn’t preclude the things we eat & excrete that aren’t particulalry good for you either & may prove challenging to remove at a cost-effective level.
Disclaimer: this ain’t my field no more.