The Cairns Regional council in Queensland, Australia has appointed a team of PWN Technologies and Black & Veatch to investigate distributing drinking water without chlorine. Throughout the world nearly all water is distributed with a disinfectant residual. One exception is that drinking water in the Netherlands and parts of Germany are distributed without a disinfectant residual. The chlorine free based approach is based on providing rigorous levels of source water treatment and carefully designed and maintained distributions systems. The council identified having the knowledge of the Dutch as critical to success of this project.
Jonathan Clement, of PWN Technologies, presented the science of the Dutch approach to the Council, Queensland Department of Health, and to a citizens reference group in recent project meeting in Cairns. A member of Queensland DOH stated that he was very happy that the Cairns regional council had selected such qualified advisors. All parties were encouraged by the long term success the Netherlands have had with the chlorine free approach. The intention is to develop a monitoring programme to understand the water system’s integrity before engaging in the chlorine free trial. All eyes in Australia will be watching the progress of this project as it will be the first time a system has converted to distributing water without a disinfectant residual.