Swimtrim

Hello RIchard, Again I thank you for your reply. You seem a bit hostile, I am not here to argue with you nor do I want to correct your erroneous pre-miss-conceptions regarding our tests and the results. FYI ,,, I will say in defense of our product, we've done extensive testing. All of our tests were conducted with approval from local health departments at commercial facilities and we did testing on both hot tubs and swimming pools. We did daily bacterial testing which are a small part of the requirements needed to have a product approved by the EPA as a stand alone commercial purifier. We followed their guidelines (EPA) for bacterial testing which are needed for approval in any commercial application. Those guidelines are much more stringent than needed for a product for residential use only. We used independent labs (EPA approved) to conduct all of the bacterial testing, those tests were conducted on a daily basis and we passed with flying colors, including state specific standards. I won't go into any further detail with you, because of your skepticism regarding our testing and product. I didn't post to start an argument I posted to see if anyone had gone through the quagmire of the EPA and may be able to simplify things ... One last thing in parting as I will no longer be posting here again. As noted in our patents, our present invention is not limited to the examples we presented nor the formulations listed and I quote from the patent. "The preferred embodiments of the present invention, it is to be understood that the invention is not to be limited by particular details set forth in the above description, as many apparent variations thereof are possible without departing from the spirit or scope of the present invention." Perhaps you can give me your input regarding what the last paragraph implies? You seem an expert in many areas and I would welcome your opinion.

Thanks for the response Richard and the information, most of which I am aware of. If you noticed in our patents it states we can add other ingredients to what we have listed. We did not list all of our ingredients that were used in submitted samples. We submitted several samples to be tested with the results posted on the patent and I assure you we did have log reductions of 6 as stated. If your so interested in the results and the facts here is the link http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6824794.html All of those samples were tested under EPA guidelines at an EPA approved lab ... As to your claim that Nature 2 is a stand alone purifier with EPA registration is that only for hot tubs? I sold the Nature 2 cartridge at our store when it first came out on the market, it didn't have EPA approval then. Does it have EPA approval for commercial use in hot tubs and pools? Typically you need to be able to test for residual levels of the sanitizer in the water in order to do any commercial purification. Does Nature 2 now offer a test strip or reagent to show the amount of ions (ppm) in the water? I've not been active in the Pool & Spa Industry for several years as I am pursuing the Humanitarian side of things at the moment so I don't have the answers to those questions. I do appreciate the time you must have taken to respond to my posting, out of curiosity do you work for a company who sells products in the pool and spa market? I would love to talk to you sometime on the phone, you seem to be extremely knowledgeable and you are correct in your assessment of log reductions with typical copper sulfate products.

I thought I would talk about Water Purification, Water Treatments, etc. I have been a dealer, manufacturer, distributor in the Pool and Spa Industry for almost 20 years ... Many people talk about and ask what is a sanitizer? In order for any product to be listed as a sanitizer/purifier it must have EPA approval. Only 3 products have that; 1. Chlorine 2. Bromine 3. Bianguanides All others are not EPA approved to use the claim sanitizes, purifies, etc. I know this having been involved with development of a new mineral product. I along with 2 others have a patented water treatment product that utilizes, copper, silver and organics. We decided to patent our product when we did testing at an EPA approved lab. We obtained and had tests showing a log reductions on E-coli of 6 within 30 seconds. Which means we had a 99.9999% kill rate within 30 seconds. A 99.99% kill rate is the log reduction that is needed to obtain a water purifier, sanitizer rating with the EPA ... At that point in time we decided to spend the $30,000 + to patent our product and go after the coveted EPA approval as a sanitizer/purifier. We would be the first and only mineral based product in the world with that rating, It was not to be ... We were not aware of the politics involved nor were we aware of the EPA's lack of giving answers to question or helping one understand the process thats needed in order to obtain approval as a purifier. We were repeatedly told, look at our website! ... I did and so did many others who could not figure out exactly what it was we needed, so we called them again and again we were told, look at our website ... can anyone look at their website and explain to me what it is I am looking for? http://www.epa.gov/ We wasted a lot of time and money and got no where. Article on us at Pool & Spa News featured article, Making it to Market. http://www.poolspanews.com/2001/111/111market.html Costs got prohibitive, dealers didn't want to carry our product due to how little the consumer had to pay to treat their hot tub with our 3 in 1 product. We were told by them, no matter how well your product works, why would we want to carry a product that does so many things, we lose money selling a product like yours We can sell and the consumer needs multiple products to do what your one product does alone. It makes sense does it not? Dealers are established to take consumer dollars! The more the better and our product eliminates the need for several additional products all dealers sell in the retail stores. We engineered our product to work without the need of calcium inhibitors, metal inhibitors and stain scale inhibition ... we did this by engineering our product with complexants that treated those problems and incorporating them into our product. It took years of research and development to get our product to work properly with high kinetic kill rates. In essence each time you add our product it does 4 things eliminating the need for 3 additional products that are needed when using other mineral products. They all work well and are good alternatives to harsh chemicals. If you look at copper sulfate based products they tell you to purchase other products that are needed to make their product work. The same 3 types of products we have patented and engineered into ours which are, calcium inhibitor, metal inhibitor and scale inhibitor. We spent 8 years developing, testing and patenting our product. It has cutting edge technology which was developed by our head of research, Dr. Terry Ring http://www.che.utah.edu/~ring/ Our product is being used by Humanitarian groups to treat contaminated water in 3rd world countries. We have a former retired environmental scientist who uses the product now, he was head of epidemiology as well as being in charge of water testing in Northern Utah at commercial water parks, hotels, motels, etc. I met him a few years ago when I presented our product at the Health Dept. We were introducing our product at the time and he was at the meeting along with about 10 others. He later told me after meeting him again that everyone thought we were just your typical sales people trying to sell a miracle product that could not do what we claimed it did. We had lab testing results and letters of recommendation with us at the meeting. No one told us at the meeting that we were being categorized as used car salesman ... After he told me that, I offered to give him the product to try, I told him the proof is in the pudding ... that was 6 months ago. His response to me after having used it for 5 months was one of disbelief, he said, had he not tried it he would have never believed what we had stated at the meeting could possibly be true. A month later, I supplied him with enough product for 17 doctors and scientists to use in Peru to treat their drinking water and to treat and test the contaminated source waters the villagers drink every day of their lives. They are in Peru as I write this. My reason for writing this is not to sell product but to let people know some things do work and the cost, time and politics of the EPA can sometimes be a deterrent for small start-up companies especially those who have small budgets to get their products to market. We know through extensive testing and use that our product does what it was engineered to do. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in time and money have been invested to produce a safe, healthy product, its been tested and used in hot tubs for several years without one incident of bacterial infection. Lack of funding and knowledge of EPA protocols can and do hinder or stop great products from ever entering the market. I know this first hand, its frustrating and changes need to be made within our government agencies. When great products are developed, when they are safe and have the potential to add protection and safety to our precious waters .. I do believe the government shouldn't make it so difficult to get through the bureaucracy they have created ... I understand the need to introduce safe products that do what they claim they do but why is it so difficult and expensive to go through the hoops they make you jump through? Can someone explain a simple, affordable way to deal with the EPA? ... any help would be appreciated!