With the official start of summer just a few days away
scientists say a mega drought across the western U.S. could get even worse
Millions of people in the state are now under new intense water restrictions
All right. Millions of Southern Californians are now under new water restrictions amid the state's severe drought
My name is Riggs Echleberry, and I'm the co-founder of Origin Clear
which is a company that is working hard to create innovative, disruptive ventures in the water industry
We're essentially an innovation hub. So we have conventional water companies that we've created in the industrial space
We also have new financial vehicles to create water as a service, which is a whole new area
And we also have a division that does nothing but modular water systems to get away from the custom water
equipment, you know, the water industry is in a way very, very backward
And so we have some technology that creates these water systems in a box, which is very exciting
Hi, my name is Michael. Thank you for joining. Is the problem in America only or it's worldwide clean water
There are several different levels. Worldwide, counting everybody, only about 20% of all sewage is treated
Now, that's not true of OECDG. countries, which do a good job of treating most of their water, but then you have places
you know, in the undeveloped world or developing world like Bangladesh where there's virtually
no water treatment. And even a place that's a second world country like Mexico has very
you know, there's rivers in Mexico that look like a rainbow because there's a lot of dumping
still going on. So I would say there's a big difference between the developed countries like
America, European countries, Australia, and the developing countries. But even America does not reach as high a standard as, for example, Italy
I remember having vacationed in Italy several times around a lake that was surrounded
I guess an old volcano, was surrounded by fields that went down into the lake
and yet the lake was pure, pristine, completely drinkable water, water even despite the, but in America, the fertilizer would have been going into that lake and
creating all kinds of algae. So I would say that the best practices are in the European community
America does okay, but then there's the factor of the recycling. And in that area
probably the world leader is Israel, where almost 90% of all water is recycled. The second in the
world is Spain with 20%. America is only 1%. And the reason for that is that we have an old
sewage grid that only works one way. Just like the energy grid, you send your water to the city, the city processes it, and then
sends it into the ocean or a river or whatever. Treat it, there's nothing wrong with the water, but the opportunity to recycle has been lost
And we're seeing that as an issue in places like California where they're still struggling
with outdated sewage systems. and they're struggling, for example, in San Diego
they're trying to do this thing called toilet to tap. But because the central systems aren't built that way
it's involving billions of dollars. So there's some new approaches needed in places like California
because there's an infrastructure problem, essentially. So you think California problems can be solved
with a little bit of money, a little bit of ingenuity, but it's not something that cannot be solved with water recycling
Water recycling helps tremendously. Now, here is the gorilla in the middle of the room in California
and that is that agriculture represents about 80% of all use. So, yes, we're happy that citizens are taking shorter showers, et cetera
but the effect, the net effect is negligible overall. It's a good PR campaign, but the fact is that
increasingly there has been a pivot toward high value crops such as nuts and so forth
which are high water users. Now, granted, there's also been a lot of headway, you know, there's been basically
more movement towards high value crops, which tend to use more water, but also more water efficiency
But that's kind of dancing around the problem, which is, It a desert and the high agricultural use in California unfortunately you know it something like what is it you know billion a year
It's a ridiculous amount of money that is, here we go. No, I apologize
$20 billion a year in exports for agricultural products, and they have to irrigate
And, you know, there's vast amount. of water. You know, 34 million acre feet of water per year are irrigated. Well, an acre foot can
easily take care of four households so that right there is, you know, those 34 million means
about 120 million people could be served with the same amount of water that is being used for
irrigation. That's the nature of the beast because, you know, 80% of all water use in California
is agricultural. So at some point, I think California is going to have to confront that issue
and deal with it in a, as much as a creative way as possible. I'm reading the Public Policy
Institute of California website here. And the, the, higher revenue crops such as nuts and grapes, which again use a lot of water
have increased as a share of irrigated acreage from 16% in 1980 to 33% in 2015
and up to 45% in the southern Central Valley. So lots more use of water, which generated more revenue
but actually farm water use was 14% lower. So it's good that they are doing, they're working very hard to become more efficient, but there's limits
If you're going to use high water usage, you know, when I take a bunch of grapes, most of those, that bunch of grapes is water
And that gets taken. It can't be reused. It gets taken to a grocery store in New York City or whatever and consume there
So that water leaves California and it can never reclaim. So I think at some point we're going to have to confront the nature of the agriculture use in California
I got you. So from your point of view, it's agricultural need for water
Actually, what's taking most of the Californian water out. Regular consumers most likely are not going to suffer really badly, meaning, yeah, they have, what's it
called sporadic turnoffs and turn-ons of water in their households, but it's not like they're going to end up in the complete desert without any water around them
Most likely Californians will just spend less water on the agriculture. That's your point of view
I actually think that residential users are going to suffer because the government has already shown that they're going to start doing rationing
They're encouraging a lot. And by the way, the populations in California
California have been very, very supportive. Per capita water use has declined from 231 gallons
per day in 1990 to 180 gallons per day in 2010, and it continues to fall. In fact, 2015
it was 146 gallons per day. So they're doing a fine job, mostly by reducing landscape watering
but there's going to be requirements for long-term reductions. If you are a big water user for landscape, I can tell you that, because I've been a water
user in California, your water bill goes crazy. So, yeah, desert plants, of course
But what I'm saying is all that stuff is going to be, you know, it's going to be hard
for residential users and there's going to be sacrifice. but it doesn't accomplish that much in numerical terms
The real gains are in the agricultural area, and unfortunately, $20 billion a year is a big vote
It is very hard to get rid of that revenue for California
So they're in a tough place. It's really, really hard for them to get rid of their, you know
get rid of avocados and instead plant barley. It's going to be very hard
I would like to move to the next subject. You've mentioned that water recycling equipment could be purchased and installed in a single household
Can you talk a little bit about it? What is it? Do you work with such equipment or can you just advise our consumers a little bit about water recycling for a single home The best what we deal with is of course we work at the housing development use level
because let me just say something about, you know, single family. It's a very competitive market
There are systems for water recycling. For example, Fuji water has an excellent system for making, taking you off the grid
and you don't need a sewage connection if you have a single family home
And they do a fine job. It's, I don't know, $10,000, $12,000. We don't try and compete with that because they do a fine job already
And as you know, a whole home water purification is also very mature
What we like to do is intervene at the housing development level to work with the developers
and so that they have an opportunity to locate the entire development away from conventional
water sources. And where Origin Clear comes in is we have a program that enables them to not pay
up front for them the equipment, but rather pay by the gallon, as if they were still getting it
from the city. So we call that water on demand. It's a basically, it creates a water as a service
We have investors who purchase the equipment. And then these housing developments can just
enjoy the three parts, as I said, the incoming clean water, the water, the treatment of the
black water, and the recycling of what we call the gray water, all on a completely self-sufficient
basis. And I think that's the future because more and more residential requirements are outstripping
the availability of sewage. Let's take, for example, Miami-Dade County, which built about, you know
It expanded very fast without any kind of urban planning back almost 100 years ago
And what was installed was over 100,000 septic tanks were installed throughout the county, very widely spread
And so the county has come up with a proposal because septic tanks are terrible. As the water levels rise due to saltwater intrusion, et cetera, it's become a problem
So they want to replace all those septic tanks with. hard sewage. Well, that's $6 billion in today's money, probably be about eight or ten by the time
it's built, 20 years of disruption, et cetera, et cetera. The better solution is to simply run a rebate
program and let people install their own self-sufficient water treatment. So these, the, you know
do-it-yourself water treatment, I believe is the solution to a lot of problems in America
and it enables a lot more utilization of the water, be it residential, industrial
agricultural. With your plan price per gallon of water, how does it impact consumers' wallet? Is it less
expensive? Is it more expensive? What is the pricing structure there? Price has been skyrocketing for
water. Water rates are not very regulated. You would think they would be, but they're not. And so
the water rates over a 10-year period that I'm looking at here tripled
versus ordinary core inflation. So water rates were already taking off even before the current inflationary phase
So, and in some places, there are as high as 14% of the residential budget, which is ridiculous
So that's another reason for people to become self-sufficient. You know, I never thought I'd say it, but, you know, the preppers were right
You need to have a plan for taking care of yourself in this current environment and that includes water
So what's your current price per water in some of your installations
How does it match up to the town's water in comparable locations
Is it similar? Is it 20% higher? Is it 20% lower? How does it compare
Well, okay, there's two things. First of all, by adopting our waters of service program, we enable and we're really talking about businesses or communities, right
So we're not talking about a single family homes, but if it is residential, it will be a community of homes or it's a business
And those by committing to a long-term contract for water service, they can limit their increases
So it's a way to cap the inflation increases by going into our programs
That's number one. Number two, by doing their own treatment, they're able to reuse their water the way they normally cannot
not And that and I give you an example in a brewery you can reuse about 50 of the water without using the water for beer just for washdowns and steam vessels and so forth And so if you can get a 50 increase in water use for every dollar you spend that a win
So I would say a combination of service contracts that cap the increases to some reasonable inflation index
and also reuse of water to get more turns out of the water
Does your system produce drinkable water as an end product? Is it a drinkable water
Exactly. Currently, we're about to inaugurate. Hotels are beginning to install whole hotel water systems
And we have such a high-end hotel chain. Unfortunately, we can't disclose yet
They're launching in July with our system. And what they've chosen to do is all the water coming into the hotel is pure, whether it's
for kitchen, showers, anything. And that, I think, is going to become a trend
And so we have a well-priced system that is certainly very affordable for a business or a community
that does the full reverse osmosis, which is what you need to get rid of those
what's called the forever chemicals, the PFAS, as they call it, the things that are in Teflon and so forth
there's really only one way to get rid of those. and that's with reverse osmosis, and that's what you have to use to clean the incoming water
In my home, for example, I don't have reverse osmosis for the entire home
I have just a plain 0.2 micron filter, but in my kitchen sink, I have a tap that is RO water
and that's what we drink from. And that's really what you have to do. Another question I have, so the hotel installs your system
Do they install a duplicate system right next to it? what happens if your system breaks
I want this hotel, which I can tell you, it's located in, it will be located in Nashville, Tennessee
You can always switch. The city water will not kill people immediately
So it's not like they're going from pure water to no water
They're going from pure water for the brief amount of time that might be down
They'll have to, there'll be tap water. But remember that these systems on service contract, they're easy to swap out
we have local service providers who come in, they swap out the filters
whatever is broken down about it. These are very simple systems. It's just like a refrigerator breaking down
Generally, you have enough time before the fridge starts to warm up that you can fix it
Similarly, with incoming water, as I say, nobody loves, you know, it's strange, Michael
Once upon a time, we all drank pure, drank tap water and it was okay
That's now become a no-no. but, you know, if it's two, three hours, five hours on tap water, it's not the end of the world
My experience with water filtration is lots and lots of maintenance because filters get clogged up and they need to be clean
So that's my question. How do you address regular maintenance? How does it occur
This is a complex system and it needs to be addressed properly
People can invest in redundant systems that typically do. don't. That's the truth of it. Because, again, you're not going from pure water to no water
You're going from pure water to treated water, which many, many people would say, old-fashioned
people would say it's just fine. So we haven't run into people who are willing to invest in redundant
systems, as put it that way. Quality-wise, do you have any data comparing your water to
bottled water being sold in the stores? Bottle water is typically purified using reverse osmosis
There is an issue with bottled water being in plastic, and there's some data that the plastic can contaminate the water
especially if you let the bottle get hot, you know, or you let it get warm
But there's not a huge difference in quality. I would say that if you have a standard bottled water that comes out of 7-11
it will be reverse osmosis treated, it'll be pure, and it'll be very similar to the water you can get from one of our water systems
The difference, of course, is that we're not using a ton of plastic bottles
I mean, that's the big difference. You guys watching this video, please sign up for Best Consumer Channel
It means a lot like this video and Riggs. Thank you very much. Thank you for joining us today