Buddina’s Laurie Jones remains against using recycled water for human consumption.

Barry Leddicoat

A BUDDINA man claims Coast residents would be guinea pigs in a research project if recycled water was introduced to drinking water supplies.

Laurie Jones, a veteran of campaigns since 1997 against the suggestion that treated effluent in potable water was safe, has come out in support of Coast councillors who said they would not vote for recycled water to be included in the draft South-East Queensland water strategy because “we have not asked the residents”.

“I applaud the decision taken, but Cr Dwyer should have mentioned this issue to his father (Des) who was Caloundra mayor at the time,” Mr Jones said.

He said recycled water should not be introduced for the same reasons now as then, when he said councils “misled” the public.

“Recycled water would cause harm to the health and wellbeing of the community and damage the environment,” he said.

“It was when Citizens Against Drinking Sewage first pointed it out to the community what the councils intended, and after they were given information on these concepts, that 8000 residents signed petitions against the introduction of both indirect and direct potable reuse.”

He said even though people argued recycling was used all over the world, the method which would be used here was “a world first”.

“Its introduction would force all Queenslanders to be used as guinea pigs for research purposes in a world-first inter-generational experiment without consent,” he said.

“The technology fails to remove all contaminants from sewage.

“It is impossible to test for the greater amount of contaminants in sewage after treatment.

“The sewage that enters the plant is the same effluent that leaves (it) after treatment, and the operators can’t give a guarantee that all contaminants have been removed after treatment.”

Mr Jones said successive former Coast councils looked at the issue, initially supported the principle then dropped it under pressure from residents.