AUSTRALIANS are already drinking water recycled from sewage even as state governments refuse to consider using the process as the nations dams runs dry.

Despite the undeniable and understandable “yuk factor” many people would associate with drinking recycled sewage, it’s a perfectly safe and already a widely used practice, according to Dr Stuart Khan, a research fellow at the University of New South Wales.

 What’s more it is cheaper and less environmentally harmful to recycle water than to desalinate it and the end product is just as drinkable.

NSW Premier Morris Iemma today denied suggestions that his Government would impose water recycling on residents after the March 24 state election if catchment levels continued to drop.

  The Western Australian Government has also ruled out using recycled water for domestic consumption; however the Beattie Government has announced it intends to have southeast Queenslanders drinking recycled water by the end of the year.

 Dr Khan, of the Centre for Water Waste and Management at UNSW, says he understands In Sydney the Penrith sewage plant discharges directly into the Nepean River, which then flows about 17km downstream before it is taken out again at the Richmond drinking water plant.

 “The amount of water that comes out of the (Richmond) plant that’s actually recycled treated effluent, depending on the weather conditions and river flow, can be anywhere from 2 per cent to 20 per cent,” Dr Khan said.

A spokesman for the NSW Premier’s office confirmed there was a “a very small percentage of average flows comes from sewage treatment plants, this is distinctly different to the large scale potable reuse of effluent as proposed in Queensland”.

 A spokeswoman for David Campbell, NSW Minister for water utilities, also confirmed a small percentage of recycled water made it into the Warragamba dam and the Nepean River each year. “In an average year the discharge from the sewage treatment plants would account for about 2 per cent of the flows in the Nepean,” the spokeswoman said.

 Premier Iemma’s office also said it would turn to desalination processes before it would utilise recycled sewage as a water source.

 But Dr Khan said that though recycled sewage water was as drinkable as desalinated water, the energy needed for the reverse osmosis process in desalination, where the water is pushed through a membrane for purification, is far greater.

 “We have to consider the amount of greenhouse gases and the amount of money it costs,” Dr Khan said.

 “We also have extra environmental implications to do with disposing large quantities of brine that are produced. “

 And the real energy requirement comes from trying to push this water that contains chemicals or salt through the membrane.

 “Sea water also contains about 35g per litre of salt whereas treated sewage contains much less than a tenth of that.”

 As it stands the quality of drinking water is less controlled than if the Government were to agree to “planned water recycling” rather than the current “un-planned water recycling” system that is in place, according to Dr Khan.

 “It is interesting that Goulburn is talking about having a planned water recycling scheme because that water is already being recycled (at the Goulburn Sewage Treatment plant), just in an unplanned way.

 “We have seen absolutely no health affects from unplanned water recycling, we consider it to be a safe process,” Dr Khan said.

 “But planned water recycling where we put the advanced water treatment process (reverse osmosis) in makes the whole process considerably safer. “We have a lot more control over what’s going on and very importantly we have a lot more management … we can confirm the water meets quality criteria.”

Source; The Daily Telegraph January 29, 2007 12:00AM