The Rural Water Project

ITT is developing a "disaster relief" water treatment system, designed specifically for cash-strapped villages in Africa and Asia dealing with contaminated water supplies.

ITT is committed to developing a portable water treatment system that can be used for disaster relief. The goal of this effort – named the Rural Water Project – is to manufacture systems with low enough price points or enough portability to be used by villages in rural Africa or Asia who most need this type of technology.

The first step is building a prototype of a low-cost, portable water treatment system that can purify brackish water. When fresh water is contaminated by seawater – brought inland by typhoons, hurricanes, tsunamis and other flood events – it creates water too salty for drinking.

Work is now underway to create an easy-to-manufacture, easy-to-use and easy-to-transport water treatment system to turn this salt-contaminated water into drinking water. At the ITT Advanced Water Treatment facility in Shanghai, ITT engineers are moving toward a solution.

"Our engineers are integrating current ITT technologies to see what pieces can be manufactured easily and combined to create a new low-tech model," says Bill Taylor, president of ITT China. "We should have a prototype very soon."

Pilot Sites in China

In the meantime, ITT is working with government officials in China to set up pilot sites where the portable water treatment system prototypes can be tested.

China has more than 20,000 miles of coastline, and its central and western regions are plagued by brackish groundwater supplies brought on by drought and industrial development. The Chinese government has stated that improving water quality – and quantity – is a priority for the country, and they are more than willing to provide funding and technical support to help move the ITT project forward.

"China is a great testing ground – and a promising market for this product," says Rui Ping Dong, external affairs director for ITT China. "If this model works here, we can extend it to other developing countries."

When ITT's new research and development center in Nanjing, China opens later this year, staff engineers will look for the best ways to develop, manufacture and deploy these low-cost, portable water treatment systems in China. Their work will serve as a blueprint for other global markets.

"This is all about ITT coming to terms with our role in the world," says Nick Hill, president of ITT's Motion & Flow Control group, who is helping to spearhead this project. "We aren't a company that is focused solely on premier results. We also have a responsibility to the environment and to people around the world who don't have access to clean water."

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