Toowoomba Referendum

WaterFuture Poll
By Brent Davidson

CITY STILL DIVIDED AS RESIDENTS HEAD TO POLLS

Toowoomba residents are going to the polls this morning to vote on the council’s controversial plan to top up the city’s water supply with recycled effluent.

But residents are still deeply divided on the issue, with strong voices on either side of the debate still trying to win votes at the gates of polling booths.

Secretary of the Toowoomba Green’s Party, Lee Mason was busy handing out “Yes” leaflets at the polling booth at Darling Heights State School.

He says while recycled water is not the answer to Australia’s water crisis; it is one of a number of steps that has to be taken.

“We’ve been in a period of drought; it doesn’t look like it’s going to break, long distance weather forecasters are forecasting that the next hundred years are going to be dryer than this hundred years,

“If we don’t say yes today, the rest of the state will overtake us… we will then get it back [the recycled water] through a pipeline and be much more expensive,” he says.

On the other side of the debate, Colleen, an independent supporter of the “no” vote says that the council’s figure of 25% of the water supply be comprised of the treated effluent, is much too high.

“It’s already been established that they’re having complications in London which is 14%, and the 1% in Singapore, and the customs warn you not to drink the water in Singapore, so it’s a complete controversy,

“For our children’s sake, the pathologists are saying no,” she says.

The polls will remain open until 6:00pm tonight.