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When is a machine like a wellspring?

When it transforms air into water, especially right after a hurricane, according to the company that is touting the AquaMagic device.

By JONATHAN ABEL
Published August 9, 2006

BROOKSVILLE - AquaMagic, a Utah company, has invented a machine to turn air into water - and it is marketing the device to hurricane-prone cities across the Southeast.

On Tuesday, the president and operations manager of the company stopped in Brooksville to show off the AquaMagic HP120-DRU, a travel-trailer-sized machine billed as "the world's first mass produced mobile water generator."

It's marketed for the hours right after a hurricane, when drinking water is scarce and bottles are impossible to bring in.

"When a disaster hits, bottled water just disappears from the area," said Jonathan Wright, the company's president. His $35,000 machine can produce 120 gallons of water per day.

Operations manager David Richards bragged that moisture in the air "is inherently cleaner than in the ground."

Richards and Wright are in the midst of a 183-city tour along from Houston to Washington, D.C.

They have yet to sell any machines, but they stir up interest wherever they go.

"There's a lot of disbelief. People say you can't do that," Wright said. "But Mother Nature does the heavy lifting through the process of evaporation."

All his machine has to do is condense, and filter, the water.

Painted blue, with a skyscape of white clouds along the side, the AquaMagic HP120-DRU can be pulled by a pickup or even a minivan.

It sucks air through vents on the side, condenses it into water, then filters the water, filling about 1,000 16-ounce bottles in a day.

For AquaMagic, all the world is a wellspring.

As far as inputs, the machine requires filter changes once or twice a year, as well as diesel fuel: about one gallon for every 10 gallons of water.

Four years ago, the idea was to make a countertop device that would produce 5 to 8 gallons per day, said Wright, who used to own a nutritional supplement company.

The tsunami of 2004, as well as hurricanes Katrina and Rita, changed everything. AquaMagic decided to scale up the design from the countertop to the blacktop with its 120-gallon-per-day model.

Someday the technology could even rival desalinization plants, Wright said, the advantage being that "this doesn't require an ocean."

But some people have reservations.

"Personally, I'm not sure why you would use that rather than go to a camping store where you can get low-cost products like iodine or a manual filter," said Jeffrey Cunningham, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at USF.

Cunningham said it was easier to treat undrinkable water than to "squeeze (water) out of the air."

"I tend to guess that there would be more cost-effective ways of obtaining clean water," he said. "But I would need to know more about the technology."

AquaMagic was supposed to come to Brooksville three weeks ago but canceled. When it came through on Tuesday morning, it failed to notify anyone except the media.

Mayor Joseph E. Johnston III didn't know about it. Neither did police Chief Ed Tincher, who heads the Brooksville Emergency Response Team.

But fire Chief Tim Mossgrove was around, so he stood in for the demonstration.

"It tastes like water," he confirmed, after a tentative sip. "It seems like a very good product that could be very useful."

AquaMagic will make stops in Pasco, Hillsborough and Pinellas counties over the next few days.

Jonathan Abel can be reached at jabel@sptimes.com or (352) 754-6114.

[Last modified August 8, 2006, 23:03:59]