[Pharmwaste] Perth water authorities calm fears on recycled effluent

[Tenace, Laurie]

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/perth-water-authorities-calm-fears-on-
recycled-effluent/2007/01/02/1167500124388.html

Perth water authorities calm fears on recycled effluent
January 3, 2007

Perth tests treated sewage for drinking 

WA's Health Department is confident that contaminants can be removed to make
recycled water safe to drink.

The contaminating agents include potent chemicals that are found in the
contraceptive pill.

The state's communicable disease control director, Paul Van Buynder, said a
Water Corporation plan for a four-year trial, which would pump 1.5 gigalitres
of treated effluent into the Leederville aquifer, would not go ahead without
Health Department approval, and standards would be tougher than those now
applied to drinking water.

But he said the department was convinced waste water could be recycled
safely.

"I have no doubt that this is do-able, I just want to make sure that the
restrictions I place on it protect the public," Dr Van Buynder said.

He said a three-year study into health guidelines for safe levels of
potentially harmful chemicals in sewage, and ensuring that treatment
processes could get rid of contaminants, would be completed before the Water
Corporation trial began in 2009.

The study would review all the chemicals that might be found in sewage,
including the three most potent endocrine disrupters, which were found in the
contraceptive pill and were likely to be present in waste water after passing
through women's urine.

The Water Corporation hopes to use the trial to expand the project to recycle
about 30 gigalitres of waste water a year by pumping the treated effluent
into the Gnangara mound, but has promised community support will be crucial.

The utility says that under the trial, the 1.5 gigalitres of waste water will
be treated by reverse osmosis, the same process used at the Kwinana
desalination plant.

Acting Premier Eric Ripper said yesterday he would have no problem drinking
recycled waste water, but conceded there would be natural public concern over
the issue.

"I trust our Water Corporation and I trust our environmental and health
regulators to get it right, but the important point is, we're going through a
trial to make sure that it really can work," he said.

"It's not emotionally an easy issue for people to accept, as was shown in the
referendum in Toowoomba.

"Nevertheless, the experts tell us that waste water can be treated to a very,
very high level of purity, and that it is safe."

Laurie J. Tenace
Environmental Specialist
Florida Department of Environmental Protection
2600 Blair Stone Road, MS 4555
Tallahassee, Florida 32399-2400
PH: (850) 245-8759
FAX: (850) 245-8811
Laurie.Tenace at dep.state.fl.us  
 
view our mercury web pages at: 
http://www.dep.state.fl.us/waste/categories/mercury/default.htm 

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