Tonka Innovations Address Latest Water Challenges

Gary Warner, executive VP at the Tonka Equipment Company, talks to Water Online Radio about industry trends and the new technology Tonka has developed to address them.

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

Water Online Radio: Tell us all about Tonka Equipment Company. What do you do and how do you serve your market?

Gary: Tonka is a solution provider. We have a very broad product line that we customize as required to address specific water issues that a community may face.

We’ve been innovators in the industry. One of the drivers in our industry is USEPA, and as USEPA sets new regulations and tightens up existing regulations, we have a history of developing new technologies to address those regulations.

We’ve innovated new technologies to improve treatment plant operation, to reduce costs of operation of treatment plants, and extend the life of treatment systems.

A good example of that would be our Simul-Wash backwash process, which is a backwash enhancement that extends filter run length. It does a better job of cleaning the media and extends the life of the media significantly.

Water Online Radio: Gary, you talked a little bit about regulations a minute ago. What other big trends do you see in the industry?

Gary: One of the trends that we have seen as of late has been high-grade filtration systems in the market place versus the conventional type system. These create challenges for designers of water treatment systems, but they can be dealt with fairly easily.

A more significant trend we’ve seen in the recent past has been the acceptance of membrane technology in the water market – more sophisticated technologies like reverse osmosis, nanofiltration for softening, and ultrafiltration.

Water Online Radio: How is Tonka positioned to deal with these trends?