Former Brisbane Lord Mayor Jim Soorley has revealed that the city's council once believed it was days away from running out of drinking water due to a laboratory error. Speaking at the ABC's Lords of Brisbane event over the weekend, Soorley recounted how scientists used to test the city's water supply by giving it to mice to see if they became ill.
Panic Over Toxic Algae Testing
During his tenure as Lord Mayor from 1991 to 2003, toxic algae was a concern, but testing methods were rudimentary. Water from Wivenhoe Dam was distilled and sent to a lab in Armidale, New South Wales, where mice were used as test subjects. If the mice lived, the water was deemed safe.
However, a wave of panic hit the council when Soorley was informed that mice had died after testing a sample. 'We were on the verge of a major crisis, because if the mice continued to die we were stuffed,' Soorley said. 'We would have no water to drink, we would have no water for industry.'
Emergency Plans and a Control Experiment
To avoid widespread panic, the news was restricted to a handful of trusted council officers. More samples were sent to the lab, and each time the mice died. The city used its reserve drinking water while the lab re-tested, but with over a million residents consuming water normally, supplies began to dwindle.
The council started making emergency plans, considering cutting supply to industrial projects, rationing drinking water, and flying tonnes of charcoal from the United States for filtration. It was only when one of Soorley's advisors, a young scientist he called a 'genius,' suggested a control experiment that the true cause was discovered.
The council sent a batch of normal distilled water to the lab in Armidale. When the mice also died after drinking this normal water, it became clear that the issue was with the lab, not Brisbane's water supply. Relief swept through council halls after the tense ten-day ordeal.
Soorley noted that the emergency never left the ranks of those few trusted councillors until he shared the story at the weekend event.
