The Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, located north of Bend in Central Oregon, has been boiling its water on and off for three years. Infrastructure issues plague the Warm Springs community, the largest reservation in Oregon at 1,000 square miles and home to a population of about 5,000. Fresh water availability is a critical problem for the people, and the COVID pandemic has raised their concerns even higher to a state of desperation. Carina Miller, a researcher for the Warm Springs Community Action Team and member of the tribe, explains the situation: “A fundamental human right, many of the citizens of Warm Springs have been forced to use bottled water, boil water, stock up on water, or find alternative solutions each time an old, out-of-compliance, and overcapacitated system encounters issues.” The cost to fix the system properly is likely to top $40 million. (Read here to learn more about this situation in a recent feature article from The Oregonian.)

Serendipity connected Carina Miller and the Warm Springs community with Tony Arnerich from 3x5 Partners and Arnerich Massena and Cody Friesen of Zero Mass Water. Out together on a fly fishing afternoon, Carina on the campaign trail in her run for the Oregon Senate in District 30, they started talking about the Warm Springs water issues and the spark of a solution was born. Enter Zero Mass Water SOURCE Hydropanels, which create potable water using only energy from the sun and water vapor from the air. For a cost much lower than the potential $40 million it would take to rebuild the crumbling infrastructure, the group talked about the possibility of SOURCE Hydropanels filling in the water need gaps, possibly serving as a long-term renewable source of water, and even contributing to economic development for the community by offering a potential source of additional revenue.

This type of situation is precisely why Cody Friesen, CEO of Zero Mass Water, is so passionate about making their product available. “SOURCE Hydropanels are a perfect source for clean, safe, sustainable renewable drinking water,” Friesen notes, “and more importantly, they’re a more holistic sollution to the broader endemic problems. We provide communities with the ability to have ownership over their most critical resource – water – versus what has historically been controlled by governments, and at risk due to weather, aging infrastructure, etc. We create resiliency and sustainability in what is often an expensive and wasteful purchase of packaged water.”

Recognizing the tremendous need Warm Springs was facing, Tony Arnerich and Arnerich Massena long-time friend and client Missy Vaux Hall stepped up as donors to launch the project. “When Tony offered me this opportunity, it was an immediate and enthusiastic YES!,” Missy said. “For me, it’s a dream investment. My capital can support a new, exciting, and developing technology to bring water, our most basic need, to the Warm Springs tribal members who have been deplorably ignored by the government. A win all the way around. Surely there are huge world-wide opportunities ahead for this technology.”

Working through the Warm Springs Community Action Team and the one2one Foundation to facilitate the project, they started by having ten SOURCE Hydropanels installed on tribal land in Warm Springs, Oregon at a cost of just under $30,000. Tony describes the speed with which the group went into action: “Within four weeks, the project was approved, we bought the panels, and they were installed and working, providing water for the Warm Springs community.” The ten Hydropanels will produce up to 50 liters of clean, safe drinking water each day; this water is available in the Warm Springs Community Action Team office and at the nearby located food cart, where community members can fill and refill water bottles.

These first ten Hydropanels were a test case, giving the Warm Springs community and tribe an opportunity to assess their long-term potential and prove the technology. Carina notes that having been through issues and false starts in the past, the community was hesitant to move too quickly. “We want to feel confident in the sustainability of this as a solution,” she says. “We needed some time for our community members to become comfortable with the technology.” Tony Arnerich agrees: “We absolutely understand why the community would be hesitant, given past experiences, and we want to take the necessary time and process to build trust and create a true partnership. We have full confidence that this technology is going to be something the community is going to embrace once they have a sense of what it can do.”

Tony Arnerich, the one2one Foundation, and Warm Springs Economic Development Corporation are discussing an opportunity to have a large-scale panel system installed through a donation that could provide significant free water to the community to start with and then lead to a commercial water enterprise. “SOURCE Hydropanels can be scaled to meet the needs of an entire community,” Zero Mass Water’s Friesen assures. “We work with stakeholders to determine the volume of drinking water needed, and then plan a custom-sized installation to meet those demands. We are actively exploring ways to contribute to the broader economic development efforts within the community.”

“It’s remarkable to see first-hand the impacts a technology like the Hydropanels can have on peoples’ lives,” Tony Arnerich explains. “Seeing something like this happen is what gets me up in the morning; for me, it’s why we’re in this business.”

Friesen discusses the future of Zero Mass Water in Warm Springs: “We know Warm Springs, like too many other indigenous communities in America and around the world, have long-term and systemic challenges to their drinking water access. We’re committed to continuing to build relationships within, and learning from, the community to understand the role our technology can play in the long term.”