U.S Firm's Water Treatment Systems Donated to Hurricane-Damaged Honduras

MIOX Corporationday, May 26th, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board, L. Phil Reinig, of the U.S. company <%=company%>, was present in Honduras for the installation of two water disinfectant generators that the company donated to the Division Municipal de Aquas (DIMA) in San Pedro Sula. Each generator can process up to one million gallons of water a day.

The donation of equipment worth $35,000 was made in response to the need for clean drinking water, which was escalated as a result of Hurricane Mitch. The San Pedro Sula sites for the generators were identified in March, when Jacqueline Barnett, the firm's vice president for international market development, met with Alfredo DiPalma, Gerente DIMA, as part of a trade mission to Honduras led by U.S. Department of Commerce Undersecretary David Aaron.

Immediately following Hurricane Mitch, Mr. Reinig directed that MIOX Corporation provide generators for the relief effort. Working with Amigos Internacionales, a non-government organization that provides supplies and labor for health needs in disaster areas, MIOX donated three portable units for relief workers for Guatemala, Belize, and Honduras, as well as three of these permanently installed units for Nicaragua and Honduras. The portable units treat up to 24,000 gallons of water per day. The permanent unit for Nicaragua was installed in December in Matagalpa.

MIOX Corporation has made similar donations in the past, most recently in Kosovo, but also in Rwanda and Bolivia.

The MIOX technology was developed by Los Alamos Technical Associates (LATA) in the 1980s to respond to the U.S. Army's need for portable water purification generators. LATA developed a process that would produce a disinfectant much more effective than chlorine, yet without using or producing hazardous chemicals. The MIOX technology has been recognized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as being cost effective and simple enough for small rural community water systems to operate.

Using only salt, the generators eliminate the need to transport and use hazardous chemicals, such as chlorine. The mixed oxidants leave the water taste and odor free, and produce fewer disinfection byproducts than chlorine, while leaving a disinfectant residual, unlike other methods such as ozone and ultraviolet radiation which do not.

In the early 1990s, a team of LATA employees commercialized the technology and formed the MIOX Corporation in 1994. By 1997 the firm had developed a line of units that treat from 24,000 to millions of gallons per day with installations and distribution agents in 22 countries.