A crew of former crab fishermen from Alaska has found a new livelihood in warmer and less dangerous waters off Hawaii, harvesting water from 915m below the surface to use in everything from beer to face creams.
The crew was hired by Deep Ocean Hawaii, a Honolulu-based company that is desalinating deep seawater aboard a vessel off Oahu and then marketing it as an ingredient free of impurities.
The company projects that it can become a US$50 million business in two years, eventually pumping 1.8 million liters of fresh deep seawater a day. It also hopes to develop its shipboard technology as an emergency source for drinking water.
In just a few years, deep seawater already has become Hawaii's biggest foreign export, with four other businesses shipping US$37 million worth of bottled seawater a year, mostly for sale in Japan for up to US$5 a bottle.
DOHawaii is the first company that will be exporting the Hawaii water in giant bladders for use in other products, rather than by the bottle.
"We're making ingredients, not the finished product," said Rudy Ahrens, chief executive of DSH International Inc, which operates as DOHawaii. "But this is going to add value to products all over the world."
The benefits and purity of any bottled water over treated tap water have been debated for years as the bottled water industry has expanded globally, but desalinated Hawaii deep seawater offers a special appeal.
It is touted by DOHawaii and other companies as a commodity that is thousands of years old, protected from modern impurities and pollution by a layer of the ocean which separates the warm surface water from colder water near the bottom.
Unlike water found above the thermocline layer, deep seawater does not contain hormones, pollution, pathogens or other compounds as the water has slowly migrated from the Arctic, said Hans Krock, professor emeritus in ocean engineering at the University of Hawaii and president of OCEES International Inc, a renewable energy consulting company.
"It's basically water that's been isolated from human influences," said Krock, who also advises and has a small ownership share in DOHawaii.
Independent research confirms that deep seawater is more pristine and isolated from chemicals and other human-caused impurities found near the surface of the ocean, said Daniel Repeta, a senior scientist with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.
But the water could still be affected by materials dropped into the ocean, said Repeta, who has independently studied the deep water off the Big Island.
DOHawaii's 44m Spirit of the North, anchored more than three 4.8km off the west coast of Oahu recently, started filling 19,685 liters bladders installed in 6.1m-cargo containers. Current production is at 302,825 liters of fresh water a day.
Much of the crew of the ship has spent the past 25 years in Alaska fishing for king crab, so development of the technology to harvest the water was a new challenge, said Ken Ostebo, president of DOHawaii's maritime operation.
"The idea of deep ocean water is simple, but being able to get it is the key," Ostebo said.
DOHawaii is entering a market developed by Koyo USA Corp and other companies based on the Big Island.
DOHawaii is cashing in on an unlimited resource and the reputation the islands have as an exotic, isolated spot surrounded by relatively clear and clean waters.
Ahrens said beer companies want to develop "Hawaiian deep-ocean brews" and health and beauty businesses are searching for purer water for cleansers, face creams and other products. Companies producing sauces and juices and those packaging products such as tuna have also shown interest and some local hotels plan to use the water in their spas, he said.
The company has inked contracts with a bottling company in Taiwan and with Deep Ocean Enterprise, which creates packaging for companies wanting to sell bottled water.
DOHawaii is also in talks with a major US beer company and another brewery in Japan, cosmetic companies on the mainland and in Europe, as well as hotels, said Ahrens, who has a background as a merchant banker.
After researching other methods for nearly four years, DOHawaii developed a new system which lowers a hose into the ocean and then pumps it onto a moored boat. The water is then desalinated through reverse osmosis, packaged in the cargo containers and lifted onto a barge, which travels back and forth to the shore.
On the Big Island, the state, as a commercial venture, pumps the water using a 915m pipeline and then transports it to the companies, which do the desalination, filtering, bottling and packaging.
Four companies already selling the water, and other enterprises are planning to enter the market, said Ron Baird, chief executive officer of the National Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority. A Maui company uses that water to make a vodka called Ocean.
Ahrens recruited retired veteran Air Force pilot Rich Treadway to serve as his chief operating officer after meeting him during a flight from Honolulu to Los Angeles. Treadway said he hopes to develop a market with the military, which spends millions of dollars to get water to troops in desert areas.
Ahrens said a future focus of the company will be on emergency relief, as water becomes scarce.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique