Swimming pool industry sees a service revenue stream

Why the hell would you want to use recycled water to fill a pool? You’d just buy a tanker full. It’s your water once you’ve bought it from a third party provider and it costs next to bugger all.

I paid $220 for 20,000Lt of drinking water just before Chritmas for our place in East Gippsland. The guy driving the tanker reckons that nearly $200 of that would have been the cost for the tanker.

Alternatively they could price the water and let people make up their own minds

Yes, I like this one too. As long as there’s a basic survival ration at the current low prices.

Alternatively they could price the water and let people make up their own minds

That sounds like the most sensible alternative. Market forces are a wonderful regulator (sometimes).

Well they could demand the pool owners empty them out,

but I think that’s a lobby too powerful.

Alternatively they could price the water and let people make up their own minds as to what they want to do.

But that would mean the Government’s ability to play god would be reduced, so no chance of that.

And then there’s the minor matter that water taken from the Lower Molonglo would have to be made up from the drinking water reservoirs to maintain environmental flows in the Murrumbidgee River)

So really its a no win solution from the point of view of water consumption – just another government mandated impost on pool owners.

We have the technology

At the media launch, the theme of the Six Million Dollar Man was playing in the background.

The ‘pool industry’ says:

“We have the technology”

A document worth reading is http://www.lwa.gov.au/downloads/publications_pdf/PX061131.pdf

This lists Australian guidelines and other sites.
Much of this is that even class A is only to be used in accordance with what the local water authority says you can use it for. They are fairly conservative as they do not want to take responsibility if things go pear shaped. Is this recycled water at Class A or a lower level ie B or C ?

The pool domestic pool industry will become extinct if the current drought continues no matter what action is taken.

Internal spa pools are another matter and do not filter water so use far more water.

I spent 3 years in the water industry down south and heavy water users either had a swimming pool, teenage daughters or disabled (incontinent) children or dodgy leaking plumbing.

I reckon the pool people could make money by trucking in the recycled water AND selling more chemicals to make it swimming-safe. Win-win.

Specifically they’re not filtering for giardia or chryptosporidium

Which are found in pools anyway, hence the purpose of pool maintenance. The US Center for Disease Control website has some good information on this.