The former lord mayor of Brisbane has lifted the lid on how his council thought the city was days away from running out of drinking water.
Jim Soorley revealed the story at the ABC's Lords of Brisbane event at the weekend, explaining how scientists used to test if the city's water supply was good to drink by giving it mice to see if they got sick.
When a few mice at the interstate laboratory died, it sent the city's council spiralling into 10 days of panic and chaos.
The recent speaking event saw four of Brisbane's previous mayors share their stories about their time leading the city council and thoughts on Brisbane's current state.
Soorley, who served as Lord Mayor of Brisbane from 1991 to 2003, said in the 1990s toxic algae was a concern but the testing for it was rudimentary.
The water from Wivenhoe Dam was distilled and set to a lab in Armidale for mice to test. If the mice lived, the water was safe to drink.
A wave of panic hit the council when Soorley was informed 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.
Former Brisbane Lord Mayor Jim Soorley (above) revealed Brisbane council used to test the city's drinking water for toxic algae by sending it to a mouse lab
The council would send water distilled from Wivenhoe Dam (above) and one day it came back with an unsafe result
'We would have no water to drink, we would have no water for industry.'
Not wanting to cause widespread panic, the news was restricted to a handful of trusted council officers.
More samples were sent to the lab and each time they were followed with news the mice had died.
The city used its reserve drinking water while the lab re-tested, but as more than a million Brisbane residents continued to use water like normal, the supply began to run low.
Brisbane council began making emergency plans.
Councillors considered cutting the supply to industry projects, rationing drinking water and flying tonnes of charcoal from America for filtering.
It was only when one of Soorley's advisors, a young scientist he called a 'genius' suggested a control experiment.
The council sent a batch of normal distilled water to the lab in Armidale to see if the mice still croaked.
A control test found the mice also died after drinking normal water, meaning there was no risk to Brisbane's water supply
Despite the drinking normal water, the mice continued to perish - proving it was something wrong with the lab, and not Brisbane's drinking water.
Relief immediately swept through council halls following the tense 10 days.
Soorley said the emergency never left the ranks of those few trusted councillors, until he told the story last weekend.