NSW: Iemma attacks Debnam over water recycling plan

AAP General News (Australia)
02-16-2007
NSW: Iemma attacks Debnam over water recycling plan

By Peter Jean and Drew Cratchley

SYDNEY, Feb 16 AAP - Recycled sewage dominated political discussion in NSW today as
Premier Morris Iemma and coalition leader Peter Debnam prepared to meet in a televised
election debate.

The two leaders will tonight take part in the first televised campaign debate in NSW
history ahead of the March 24 state election.

Mr Iemma today slammed Mr Debnam's plan to add recycled sewage and storm water to Sydney's
drinking water supply if dam levels drop to 20 per cent.

The coalition has promised to spend $955.7 million on linking water treatment plants
in north-western Sydney and connecting plants in the city's south-west to Prospect Reservoir.

Mr Iemma said the government already had established water recycling projects and another
was at the tender process but they would only be used to supply water for industrial and
other non-drinking purposes.

"We are forcing industry to use it, whereas Mr Debnam wants to force the people of
western Sydney to drink sewerage," he told reporters at a sewage treatment plant at Penrith,
in western Sydney.

The 86 gigalitres of water purified by the coalition's recycling network each year
would initially be used for agricultural and industrial purposes and for environmental
flows.

If dam levels, which are currently at 37 per cent, fell to 20 per cent, recycled water
would be used to supply up to 10 per cent of Sydney's drinking water.

Mr Debnam assured Sydney residents recycled water would not taste any different to
the tap water they receive now.

"It doesn't taste different," he told reporters.

"Nobody notices any difference. It is purified water, it's pure water."

The state government plans to build a $1.9 billion, 125 megalitre per day, desalination
plant at Kurnell in southern Sydney to supplement Sydney's drinking water supply.

The coalition has said it would consider building a desalination plant in the safe
Labor eastern Sydney electorate of Maroubra only as a last resort solution to the water
crisis.

Mr Debnam said voters would have a choice at the election between Labor's desalination
plant and the coalition's recycled water project.

"It is a very clear choice. For the next five weeks we're going to debate this and
the issue will be decided on March 24," he said.

Total Environment Centre director Jeff Angel said the coalition's water recycling proposal
was a cost effective and environmentally sustainable way to secure drinking water supplies.

"Using purified recycled water is a crucial part of creating a long-term sustainable
and cost-effective water supply," Mr Angel said in a statement.

"Desalination by contrast is expensive, energy intensive and crates problems with disposal
of highly saline brine."

Queensland Premier Peter Beattie plans to use recycled sewage to boost his state's
drinking water supplies.

AAP pj/klw/imc/bwl

KEYWORD: POLLNSW WATER NIGHTLEAD

2007 AAP Information Services Pty Limited (AAP) or its Licensors.