Water policy and innovation is opportunity for Oregon businesses

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Calvin Noling formed his company, StormwateRx, in 2006 with a pretty simple foundational belief.

He thought that there would come a day when water, even the polluted runoff from an industrial site, would be considered a resource, not just something to be disposed of with as little fuss as possible.

With headlines appearing regularly about global water shortages, that day is coming quickly.

That’s in part what’s motivating a task force working to introduce a water initiative into the Oregon Business Plan. The idea is to make sure the business community has a voice in water policy discussions happening on a statewide level and to seize a leadership position in the kind of water-related technologies that the market will demand.

Oregon is one of just two western states without a water strategy plan.

“These are definitely areas for us to focus on in the future,” said Michelle Girts, vice president with CH2M Hill and acting chairwoman of the water task force.

The task force has identified Oregon’s main water challenges, summed up as an expected influx of population coupled with the lack of any kind of resource plan. It plans to introduce an initiative this month designed to encourage investment in water-related businesses and infrastructure, participation in policy development and awareness of the water needs and resources of the state and its industries.

Participants in the Business Plan’s water task force include representatives from universities and resource-oriented nonprofits in addition to businesses such as Harry & David, Medford Fabrication, General Electric and Siltronic Corp.

“There hasn’t been a lot of business presence in state water policy,” said Daniel Thorndike, corporate counsel for Medford Fabrication and former chairman of the Oregon Water Resource Commission. “But if we’re able to manage our water resources in the state in a proactive way, there’s a strong possibility — especially with what appears to be happening with global warming — for the state to have a comparative economic advantage.”

Some Oregon business owners are charging ahead.

Portland-based StormwateRx manufactures stormwater filtration systems for use on industrial sites. The company now has customers across North America. Noling would not disclose revenue figures but said the 10-employee business is cash-flow positive.

Another entrepreneur, Lisa Farmen, started Portland-based Crystal Clear Technologies in 2005 to answer a particular question: Where would Americans go for water if municipal tap water went away? Farmen and some research partners came up with an inexpensive alternative for water purification using nanotechnology. Now the company is poised to become one more example of how paying attention to the water issue can pay off.

After years as a research-oriented startup, funded through the National Science Foundation and the Oregon Nanoscience and Microtechnologies Institute, the company is still without any sales to speak of or full-time employees on the roster.

But Farmen said she has large potential customers clamoring for wastewater treatment technology that Crystal Clear’s nano-coating technique can supply.

“What we have in our lab happens to be the thing that works,” Farmen said. “This is no longer a research project. We’re now in the development stage.”