The following is an excerpt from the Q&A with Water Online Radio. Click on the Radio Player above to hear the full interview.

Water Online Radio: Go deep on In-Pipe Technology. What’s the organization all about?

Jim Elliott: We have what we believe to be a very unique technology in that we change the biology of sewer collection systems to make it a beneficial part of the process, instead of just a necessary evil to get the sewage to the treatment plant. We change the biology by injecting bacteria continuously, change the bacteria microcosm where there’s actually beneficial work that is done, and reduce the load on the waste treatment plant. And there are some other benefits in the collection system as well, by reducing odors and corrosion problems.

Water Online Radio: You talked about changing the biology. What kind of reuse applications are there? Are folks looking at those kinds of things?

Jim Elliott: Well, yes. That actually leads into some of the technologies that we want to add to our portfolio and some of our patents that we’re applying for, where we can actually do what we call sewer mining. We take a side stream out of a collection system and treat it. The concentrated waste goes back to the sewage treatment plant, partially digested, but also the water is recovered from the device and can be used for irrigation or other purposes. That’s something that we’re looking at and have a patent applied for.

Water Online Radio: Jim, talk a little bit more about In-Pipe’s differentiators.

Jim Elliott: Well, we’re an engineered solution. There are other companies that have bioaugmentation who will provide bacteria for a purpose. We don’t really do it that way. We actually provide an engineered solution. We’re putting in dosing panels on a preplanned, engineered basis, customized to the specific application. We’re continuously injecting bacteria using our service labor, and there’s no capital cost to the client. So, it’s a very different solution than just buying a bucket of bugs, which is sometimes what we get compared to. We don’t want to be compared to that because we’re really very different from that.