Just add water.

In times of disaster, war or disease, a source of clean water can mean the difference between life and death.

Along with the help of a local church, one Goshen man is making sure at least some victims of the Haiti earthquake disaster have a steady supply of potable water. Of course, Steve DePue should know something about clean water, he’s been building portable filtration and purification systems for more than a decade.

DePue is the owner, president and sole employee of Arctic Clear Products Inc., which manufactures the Arctic Clear 202 portable filtration system. He first began making the earlier 201 model in the early 1990s, and it showed its usefulness immediately when he shipped units for use in Sarajevo, at the time under siege by the Republica Srpska and the Yugoslav People’s Army during the Bosnian War.

Units were also shipped to Singapore following the tsunami created by the Indian Ocean Earthquake. War-torn Somalia also received Artic Clear filters. DePue has also shipped units to Bosnia, Belgium, Canada, India, Rwanda, Spain, Sumatra, Uganda, the Ukraine, Vietnam, Zaire and the U.S. The units are also used in World Vision’s field hospitals and a children’s AIDS hospital in Kenya.

Now, DePue is adding Haiti to the list following an effort by Creekside Church of the Brethren in Elkhart, of which he is a member, to fund the purchase of one unit.

According to a release from the church, “Followers of Faith and Outreach Missions Teams, both part of Creekside’s outreach efforts, wanted to do something long-term for Haiti. They decided a water filtration system would be a great way to give a lasting gift of clean and safe water. Each team donated one third of the cost of the system and challenged the congregation to donate the remainder. The congregation met the challenge and more.”

For DePue, efforts like that put forth by the church are why he does what he does.

“It satisfies my reason for getting into the company, starting the business initially, and that was to provide a service and help people in the community and around the world, wherever there was a need for safe drinking water,” DePue said.

He said the relatively low cost of the unit and its upkeep are why it is so successful and versatile.

“It takes low maintenance and has a low use of supplies,” DePue said. “You can buy three pallets of bottled water at the cost of one unit, and this keeps on going. You also don’t produce the waste of plastic bottles.”

Non-profit agencies can purchase one of the units for $2,265. ACP also offers supplies for the units at varying costs, with a one-year supply package at a cost of just under $250.

The 202 model, which weighs just 44 pounds in the case, works by running dirty water through filters with three gaps of declining size starting at one micron down to half of a micron. The filters eliminate more than 100 contaminants, including sediments, iron, chlorine, mercury and pesticides, and can be used to custom treat water with high concentrations of lead, sulfur and other contaminants. Before the water even gets to the filters, an 80-mesh stainless steel screen removes any large particles.

Additionally, each unit is equipped with an ultraviolet light that kills viruses and bacteria, including salmonella, giardia, hepatitis, Legionnaires’ disease and cholera. The filters last from three to six months, and the UV bulb is rated for 7,500 hours — approximately 312 days of non-stop use.

Finding an effective power source for the units might seem to be difficult in times of true crisis, but it is for that reason that the units have been engineered to be very versatile. They can be powered through both 220-volt and 110-volt sources with custom power cables for any nation’s electrical system, but can also be run with 12-volt batteries and can even be ordered with a portable solar array. The units themselves use just 60 watts of power.

DePue also makes an alternate version of the unit for the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) that includes a solenoid as well as a pressurized intake, so it can be hooked up to pressurized water sources, such as contaminated public water systems.

A major improvement over the 201 unit is the speed of treatment. The original unit could treat 250 gallons of water in 24 hours. The 202 can treat up to 1,800 gallons in the same amount of time. That flow increase “took some significant engineering,” according to DePue.

Each individual unit is tested for 24 consecutive hours and comes with a 32-page manual.