By JACK NICHOLL

jnicholl@dailynews.net

A water purification company that uses forced evaporation techniques had its grand opening Friday morning at the Otis water treatment facility, 3939 Kansas Highway 4.

Summit Industries will use its Forced Air Thermal Evaporation system to evaporate water, and DSD Distributing will take care of maintenance of the product.

The FATE system has water-based and land-based units that were placed in the cleanest of three pools of water at the treatment facility. The evaporation process results in water vapor being shot into the air.

The system first was used in Colorado but has expanded to multiple states and is in the process of extending internationally.

The rate of evaporation depends on the humidity, but Mathew Stahlecker, vice president of sales for Summit Industries, said about 27 gallons are evaporated per minute at 60 percent humidity using the system.

Jerry Dirks, DSD Distributing sales manager, said both the land and water based units operate faster and humidity decreases.

The evaporation helps separate the water from the solids to help create cleaner rain water, and eventually drinking water.

"Dirty water is a problem no matter where you go," Stahlecker said. "How do you get rid of it is the biggest problem?"

Stahlecker said the system will work better in areas that do not have great water treatment facilities.

The system can save cities money compared to the alternative of building large treatment pools for natural evaporation, Stahlecker said, and the system can operate below the freezing point of water.

Also, the FATE system can be set up in an hour for mobilization to off-site jobs, serving as an alternative to manually transporting waste water. It also can be used in oil, gas and mining areas to remove the water.

"I can turn around and eliminate with one machine what 30 trucks can do, and those trucks have to go over the highway," Stahlecker said.

The system was set up in Otis because Stahlecker's brother, Brian Stahlecker, lives in Otis and is the logistics manager for DSD Distributing.

DSD Distributing mostly will be looking to expand the evaporation system, including to other parts of Kansas, because of the low maintenance of the system.

"It pretty much does its own thing," Brian Stahlecker said.