Quotes of the Day

Rosemary morley doesn't deny that Toowoomba's water problem is grim. Like everyone else in this parched southeast Queensland city, she's been living with tough water restrictions for nearly three years. But the 60-year-old former president of the local chamber of commerce is sure she's being duped by Toowoomba authorities when it comes to a solution—and she's not alone. More than 10,000 people have signed a petition rejecting the local council's proposal to make the 95,000-strong community the first in Australia to supplement its drinking water supply by adding its own treated effluent. "We'll be the lab rats for the rest of Australia," says Morley. "But this is not a road we need to go down."

Next month Toowoomba will vote in a referendum on whether treated wastewater should make up 25% of the city's drinking water. With state and federal governments keenly awaiting the outcome, a heated contest is underway to win public favor. Morley, who founded the Citizens Against Drinking Sewage lobby group 10 months ago, says locals talk of little else: "People go to funerals and after a cup of tea what does the talk turn to? Water." Contrary to the popular image, that water wouldn't flow straight from their toilets to their taps. But though scientists insist that wastewater recycled under the Toowoomba scheme would be cleaner than the water Australians currently drink, suspicion remains. "Scientists are scientists," says Morley. "They believe in what they invent."

Elsewhere, Australians are embracing water recycling as never before. Better public awareness and water restrictions in many communities have cut usage rates. The reuse of water for irrigation and industry is increasing. And a raft of recycling projects, such as Queensland's Western Corridor Recycled Water scheme—which, as the Southern Hemisphere's largest such pipeline, will supply power stations with about 110 million liters of recycled water a day from 2008—promise huge water savings. But while spraying such water on cotton crops or golf courses has widespread support, the notion of pouring it into a glass still makes many squirm.

Scientists like Heather Chapman, program leader at the Cooperative Research Centre for Water Quality & Treatment, would love to conquer the "yuck" factor that dominates the recycled-drinking-water debate worldwide. She insists the feared health risks of chemicals in water—from fertility problems to cancers—have been overstated and the effectiveness of modern processes for removing contaminants undersold. "The treatment processes are very, very efficient," Chapman says. "Nothing is completely risk free, but the risk of these things is so tiny compared with the risks that we are exposed to daily, like getting in a car." She says scientists need to find better ways of getting that message across: "People ask, What are they hiding? Well, we're not hiding anything—we're doing the research and presenting the findings, but we still get this type of reaction."

With researchers from seven countries, Chapman and an Australian team are devising a new set of monitoring tools to better detect the presence of specific hormones in water. One of the criticisms of using recycled water for drinking is that it can't be tested for every possible contaminant. But Chapman says the Global Water Research Coalition project, due to be completed mid-next year, will make testing unnecessary. Rather than having to carry out hundreds of costly and time-consuming tests for contaminants and speculating on their possible effects, scientists using the "toolbox" will be able to take a much simpler approach, detecting biological effects on, say, fish or water insects and working backward to identify the causes.

In New South Wales, the residents of Goulburn are also weighing up the assurances of experts. The town's main dam dried up in April and two others are less than a third full. Outdoor water use is banned, and since 2002, residents have halved their personal consumption to 150 liters a day. New bores, a $A1 million-a-week cartage scheme and an emergency pipeline have all been readied, but Mayor Paul Stephenson says recycling has to top the long-term list: "The only way we can really be sure that we never go through this again is to reuse water in one form or another." A public consultation process is about to begin on his plan to send treated wastewater through a series of wetlands before blending it into reservoir supplies. "We are going to have to be able to prove not only to ourselves but to the state and federal governments that there is absolutely no risk in what we are doing," Stephenson says.

If Toowoomba and Goulburn opt to make Australian history, they won't be global pioneers. Some U.S. cities have had similar schemes for years, and since 2003, Singapore has been adding treated wastewater to its reservoirs, the quality of its NEWater exceeding World Health Organization guidelines. Greg Leslie, associate professor of chemical engineering at the University of N.S.W., worked on Singapore's scheme with engineering firm CH2M HILL, which is proposing to upgrade Toowoomba's sewage-treatment plant. Leslie thinks objections raised to such schemes in Australia verge on hysteria. "I can't fathom anyone in their right mind saying they wanted to drink sewage," he says. "But drinking highly treated water is a completely different kettle of fish." Given that desalination also uses reverse osmosis—a process so precise it can remove chemicals and contaminants at the molecular level—to convert sea water to potable water, Leslie can't understand why the same technology, when combined with another disinfecting process using ultraviolet light and peroxide, is distrusted for purifying sewage water: "If we can't get something as straightforward as this sorted out, how will we work out other environmental challenges?"

But Ross Young, executive director of the Water Services Association of Australia, which represents 29 major urban water providers, doubts recycling water for drinking would be more cost effective for Australia's major cities than desalination. With "no demonstrated community support" for drinking recycled water, he believes desalination will remain the preferred option for coastal populations. National guidelines for recycled water are now being drawn up; Young says he would want it to be passed through a natural filter such as wetlands after treatment. "Even though the scientists say it's safe, treatment plants don't always operate within specifications. That's why we would say that an added barrier of putting it back through an environmental buffer is required," he says. "We need to be reasonably prudent and cautious—maybe there are some things in the water we can't detect now."

A recent three-year csiro study of public attitudes to treated wastewater showed that science alone isn't enough to reassure people in a debate that's just getting started, says the csiro's Blair Nancarrow: "Scientists aren't just trusted automatically anymore. You have to have a partnership with the community." Next month's poll in Toowoomba will shape the future of that debate. But a yes vote will only make it the first Australian community to officially welcome recycled water into its kitchens. Richmond, on Sydney's outskirts, takes water from the Hawkesbury River, into which treated effluent is discharged, as does Adelaide, from the Murray. Says csiro water expert Peter Dillon: "There are probably more people in the world taking water supplies from sources that receive effluent than people who don't." Many Australians are already drinking recycled water—they just don't get to vote on whether they want to.

• Lisa Clausen
• Dry Australian towns want to put purified wastewater on tap, but some people find the idea hard to swallow