Doing well by doing good: Thunder Bay company turns on the tap to filtration.

• Author: Ross, Ian
• Position: GREEN REPORT - Global Hydration Water Treatment Systems

This past fall, Andrew Moorey was putting the "global" in Global Hydration Water Treatment Systems.

The Thunder Bay water purification company was "absolutely overwhelmed" with orders for water purification tablets from aid agencies in Haiti working to stem the spread of cholera in that earthquake-ravaged Caribbean country.

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"It's a small fire that could grow into a big fire," said Moorey president of the three-employee company that makes small and portable water treatment plants and distributes purification supplies.

Always being on call in case disaster strikes can be a tall order for a small company But it becomes pretty standard to work 12- to 14-hour days, sometimes seven days a week, whenever water emergencies occur in the Far North communities.

"You never know what e-mail is coming or who's on the phone with a French accent from Haiti looking for two million tablets," said Moorey whose company is moving into a renovated 1,800-square-foot building on the city's water-front.

Since launching in 2001, Global Hydration has found its niche by being able to move fast with rush orders of their portable treatment systems for disaster and emergency response agencies.

Their clients include the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP), Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC), the Public Health Agency of Canada, Vancouver Urban Search and Rescue, fire departments in Toronto and Calgary the US. Marines and various aid management agencies and sporting good stores.

"When we deployed last year to Pikangikum with INAC," said Moorey "we got a stand-by call Saturday night, got the go-ahead on Sunday morning, and by three o'clock I was on a charter plane with all the (purification) equipment heading to the community By six, we were at the water treatment plant, people were lining up and we were providing them with safe drinking water."

Owned by brothers Andrew and Ian Moorey, it's a spinoff company of the family's water bottling business, Kakabecka Crystal Spring Water. It was there that they first learned the purification process.

They realized whenever there were emergencies up north, it was a logistical nightmare to fly in heavy and bulky pallets of bottled water.

So they went down the R & D path and built their own miniature treatment system which could be quickly deployed to pump and filter potable water out of any lake or river.

Their CAN PURE system is in use by the OPP's Emergency Response Team and INAC.

The transportable...