Hague Quality Water

Hague Quality Water Inc. of Groveport, Ohio, a manufacturer of water treatment equipment, will receive the 2009 Small Business Environmental Exporter of the Year award from Ex-Im Bank.

Using Ex-Im Bank’s multi-buyer, short-term insurance, Hague Quality Water has increased export sales by 87% over the past 5 years, expanding into fast-growing international markets with environmentally beneficial equipment that creates clean drinking water and promotes energy efficiency. The 100-employee, family-owned company has been an Ex-Im Bank customer for 13 years.

“Ex-Im Bank insures our receivables, and this lets us extend terms to international customers that we wouldn’t otherwise be able to offer,” said Hague Quality Water President Robert Hague. “Our export business has been growing faster than our domestic sales, and some weeks, it’s been exports that have kept our factory going full.”

“By working with innovative companies like Hague Quality Water, Ex-Im Bank not only helps these firms create and maintain U.S. jobs, but also supports U.S. environmentally beneficial exports to emerging markets around the word,” said Ex-Im Bank First Vice President and Vice Chair Linda Conlin.

Hague Quality Water exports to a wide range of markets, including China, Egypt, Japan, Latvia, Taiwan, Turkey, Ukraine, and Western Europe.

A 10-year study on disinfection byproducts (DBPs) reports on the connection between certain DBPs in drinking water that are “emerging” in scientific studies and their carcinogenic potential, according to a March 31 ScienceDaily report based on a University of Illinois press release.

The study, which began with a grant from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), has found that iodine-containing DBPs are much more toxic and genotoxic than other DBPs now regulated by EPA, according to University of Illinois geneticist Michael Plewa, the study’s author.

Plewa said another “somewhat surprising” discovery concerns nitrogen-containing DBPs. “Disinfectant byproducts that have a nitrogen atom incorporated into the structure are far more toxic and genotoxic, and some even carcinogenic, than those DBPs that don’t have nitrogen. And there are no nitrogen-containing DBPs that are currently regulated,” Plewa said.

Ironically, the DBPs that are regulated by the EPA tend to be some of the least toxic DBPs in Plewa’s study. “We’ve found that the emerging DBPs are much more genotoxic and much more cytotoxic. But I can’t fault EPA because these data were not present at the time, and in fact the development of the database of over 70 DBPs has been done in concert with our colleagues at the federal EPA.”

In addition to drinking-water DBPs, Plewa said that swimming pools and hot tubs are DBP reactors. “You’ve got all of this organic material called ‘people’ — and people sweat and use sunscreen and wear cosmetics that come off in the water. People may urinate in a public pool. Hair falls into the water and then this water is chlorinated. But the water is recycled again and again so the levels of DBPs can be tenfold higher than what you have in drinking water,” Plewa said, noting that studies show higher levels of bladder cancer and asthma in people who do a lot of swimming.

Plewa said the long-term study has resulted in what he considers the largest toxicological data base on emerging DBPs.

Plewa, along with a team of scientists, received an EPA science and technology award for their paper, “Occurrence, genotoxicity and carcinogenicity of regulated and emerging disinfection by-products in drinking water: A review and roadmap for research.” It was published in the scientific journal Mutation Research.