Henryetta man helping tsunami victims with water purification

One of the things everyone need is water. Purification systems have been destroyed in many areas across Southeast Asia. <br/><br/>News on 6 reporter Rick Wells visited with a Henryetta man who is sending

Wednesday, January 5th 2005, 10:06 am

By: News On 6

One of the things everyone need is water. Purification systems have been destroyed in many areas across Southeast Asia.

News on 6 reporter Rick Wells visited with a Henryetta man who is sending purification systems to tsunami victims.

John Candler builds air and water purification systems. When he heard about the Christmas weekend tsunami's he contacted business acquaintances in Malaysia and offered to provide water purification systems at no profit. "We'll be pulling water out of streams and ponds and then purifying it. It will be sterilized after we apply the ozone to it."

Much of the water in those hard hit areas is contaminated and getting worse. His purification units will be contained in 2-foot long sections of PVC pipe like this. Each will contain three ultra-violate light bulbs, at the proper frequency the lights produce ozone. The ozone kills the bacteria in the water; much the same way most bottled water is purified. "If you read the label on most bottled water you buy it'll say ozonated for purity."

Once it is filtered it will be safe to drink; they will produce ten units at a cost of about $350 each. The funding will come from private sources in Southeast Asia. "Once we have the supplies in place we can turn out 10 units in about 5 days."

The same technology is used to purify the air and he has discussed providing air purification units to hospitals and clinics in the tsunami areas to help purify contaminated air. But water is the first priority and he says the units will deliver purified water at a relatively low cost. "Now the cost per gallon of treated water for Southeast Asia is about 9,000ths of a penny a gallon."

He figures the units could be on their way in about three weeks.