We saw how events like droughts and excessive rain are over-stressing water infrastructure to the breaking point, as if the situation with things like antiquated lead pipes in children's schools weren't already a big enough concern! So, the importance of our campaign to integrate water treatment systems into businesses away from municipal dependencies is even more real than ever… But how do we do it? Find out in the replay!
Estrella: Hi, my name is Estrella Nouri. As you guys know, I am a top model, a singer and actress, and I am very passionate about the environment. So today we are talking about water. Why water? Well, we're going to find out because I am here with the founder of Water On Demand™, Riggs Eckelberry. How are you?
Riggs: Estrella, it's such a pleasure being here on such a beautiful day.
Estrella: It is beautiful. Thank you. So I want to know all about your company, Water On Demand, and how you got it started and why you got it started.
Riggs: Well, you're absolutely right, that the why is all important because, you know, we're accustomed to thinking of water as well, open the tap water, comes out, flush the toilet, water goes away, everything's fine. But in fact, it's not great. Throughout the world, we have terrible problems. 6000 kids a day dying of water diseases, every single day. You know, millions have diarrhea from water. It's not a pleasant thing for these people where they're going through and this is all because of very poor sanitation.
The amazing thing is, is that we have that problem even in America. You've heard of Flint, Michigan, for example, Jackson, Mississippi, Compton, California. Those are just the tip of the iceberg. There are major problems with water in America and even worse elsewhere. What we really are interested in doing is, how can we do something highly effective? It also helps the planet and returns a profit to investors because it's all good to invest in charity water and water.org. A wonderful thing. But we think we can do even better through this specific thing we're going to talk about and return a profit to investors.
Estrella: I love that. So what made you go, "Okay, I'm going to start Water On Demand?"
Riggs: First of all, set some background here, which is that I came out of high tech, which is all about disruption. We saw how Uber disrupted the taxi industry. Airbnb disrupted hotels. Well, who going to disrupt water and why? Water is this big, slow moving giant that is not really doing its job and is a lot we can discuss about that. But the short story is that it needs disrupting right now. Well, what.
Estrella: Inspired you to want to disrupt and be part of the water change?
Riggs: You know, I could make another software program and it would be great, but water is life, right? And what we've learned over time is that water industry is going through major change right now. It turns out that 90% of all water usage is by industry and agriculture. They are overloading, overwhelming the system so that individuals who are only the 10% are getting the short end of the stick. And we're even being blamed for drought.
Estrella: Right.
Riggs: Okay. We can take shorter showers, but maybe the 90 percenters could do more. We focus on that.
Estrella: You focus on the 90%. Absolutely. Which is business and...
Riggs: Industrial and agricultural users.
Estrella: Got it.
Riggs: Now what's happening with them is that it's turning to better and better thing for them to do their own clean up. They make the water dirty instead of sending it to the city and overwhelming the city, let them just treat their own water. What's great about that is they can use it again and again, which means that their costs go down. So they're happy to do it themselves. Now, why haven't they it done it already?
Number one, we needed more compact systems that would fit in a business, and we've done that. In 2018. My company, OriginClear, which has been a public company for some time, built this business that creates these Water Systems in a Box™, we call it, Modular Water Systems™ is the brand and it's doing fantastically. But there was still a problem because what we found out, especially during COVID when everything was going nuts, is that businesses needed help with money. If you're asking a brewery to invest in wastewater systems, they're like, I'm sorry, I'm funded to make beer. Where am I going to find $1 million to clean the water? I thought that was the city's job. So we realized that the way to really accelerate this is to make it a no brainer. Oh, let's say, Miss Nouri, you are a brewer.
Estrella: Okay.
Riggs: You have a wonderful brewery. I love your ale, by the way.
Estrella: Wonderful, wonderful. Great. I'm doing my job. Right?
Riggs: Exactly. Now you've got this big problem where the city won't take your water. They're making you truck it to the next county, and it's very expensive. And you'd like to also, all that water you're using, use it again to wash down your vats and so forth.
Estrella: Yeah,
Riggs: That's all great. And we come along, we say, "Okay, sign here and you don't have to pay for the machine we're going to put in and just pay by the gallon, as you always did with the city. You just keep doing it with us." We call it Water On Demand and it is basically water as a service.
Estrella: How would someone like me get involved with Water On Demand?
Riggs: Okay, you have a choice. You could get involved with OriginClear as a high end investor and that's very nice. But I think what's better is to get directly involved in Water On Demand, as an everyday investor.
Estrella: Okay.
Riggs: The minimum is only $1,000. It's early, water is a stable commodity. Water doesn't go through ups and downs. It's early in Water On Demand's life. So your opportunity is the greatest.
Estrella: When you say that, what do you mean?
Riggs: We launched Water On Demand in late 2021, so it was just the beginning of it. Now it's gotten more and more capital, we're starting to get our first pilot projects and we're also starting to do some acquisitions, buying other companies. So this is the time when it's all coming together to invest a small amount of money. Nothing that'll hurt you and have potentially an excellent return. And by doing it now versus later, you'll have helped us at a critical time. When we have to build the systems, we have to accumulate the capital to pay for these systems and also acquire the companies to make our job more effective.
Estrella: Got it. So just so I have an understanding, these systems go into the businesses that take their water and as they use it, it recycles it. So it doesn't just go into the ocean and become a waste.
Riggs: Bingo.
Estrella: It actually starts recycling and they can keep using it. So not only does that help our planet, but if someone gets in early and invests in the system, it helps them as well.
Riggs: Well, think about Apple in 1984 when the Mac came along and it was a complete change from those little green screens with the little dotted line. Dot, dot, dot, dot, dot. No, it was graphical and the world fell in love with it. And people invested in 1984 and Apple did very well. Same thing with cell phones. Landlines became cell phones. So anytime you have a major shift, it's good to get in and you should get in to the extent that it's something you can do easily and also you want to get in early because what's the problem with the stock market today?
Estrella: It's crashing.
Riggs: Why? Because this is the, these stocks have already gone up.
Estrella: What do you mean?
Riggs: For example, Tesla. Okay. Tesla's, you know, it was going up, up, up, up, up. And now it's going down, down, down, down, down. Right. And why? Because there's been so much investment already. But if you can get into something early,
Estrella: Like in the beginning.
Riggs: Exactly.
Estrella: I see.
Riggs: Early in the cycle. The time to invest in a market is when all the existing stuff is just crashing down. You go, okay, let's invest in the baby. Right. Let's not go with the middle aged guy. Let's invest in the baby.
Estrella: Got it.
Riggs: There's so much life ahead of it.
Estrella: Right.
Riggs: So much growth. So now water has not been an asset that people can invest in. Sure, they can buy bonds, which are basically a kind of a loan, or they can invest in, buy stock in big water companies, but they don't grow very fast. They don't. Why? Because they've been around forever. This is a new, new thing which solves the whole financing problem for people needing a water treatment system. And enables this great new technology to go in. And so, potentially thousands, tens of thousands of businesses are going to jump on the bandwagon, use that, and we are going to expand our network. And we will have dramatically change the water industry. And guess what? Others will follow, no question.
Estrella: Okay. Now, when others follow does that impact people's investments?
Riggs: Well, it's always good. For example, Windows followed. Mac, did it hurt, Mac? Not really Apple. Apple remained super strong because they kept inventing. You see, we don't, we should never be afraid of competition because if we go first in the market and we innovate and somebody goes, "Oh, we'll copy that." Meanwhile, we're innovating the next thing,
Estrella: Right.
Riggs: We're always ahead.
Estrella: Right.
Riggs: For example, one of our ideas is to create a very standardized world market for water based on each gallon being paid for in this water as a service. Right. It's happening in the US. It's happening in Latin America. It's happening in East Asia, South Africa, India. London, everywhere. So we will have eventually, our plan is to have Water On Demand centers through partnerships that do the same thing we're doing here, but elsewhere. So we'll continue to expand and then we'll knit it all together into a market that is standardized for water as an asset.
Estrella: And water hasn't been an asset before.
Riggs: Right, Because it's been governmental. Yeah, you can buy water rights. It's a very small market, but the actual business of treating water is not very open and it shows in the stats. Do you know that it's $1 trillion industry water treatment in the world? But it only treats 20% of the dirty water. The remaining 80% is thrown away dirty.
Estrella: Wow.
Riggs: England, they only have 14% of the rivers in England are clean. It's a scandal.
Estrella: Now, in Israel, 90% of the water is recycled. But in America, it's not the same.
Riggs: Not the same at all.
Estrella: Why is that?
Riggs: Well, okay, you have to recognize that the older an infrastructure is, you kind of fall behind. Look at what happened with America going to cell phones and Africa going to cell phones. Well, Africa went straight from nothing to cell phones. They didn't do landlines at all. They didn't string wires everywhere. They just had towers. So we were actually delayed in our rollout of cell phones in America because we already had landlines for the longest time.
Similar thing with energy. Energy, we have a whole structure that's very old and it's getting in our way. Water is the same way. The water industry, which is governmental, mostly takes your dirty water, cleans it once, throws it in the ocean, which means no recycling. Whereas Israel invested later, they have a more modern water system. And so, it's got the recycling built in. Also they live in a desert and they recognize that they probably should have more efficiency and we need to start thinking the same way. How come we're in a desert here? We're only doing 1% recycling.
Estrella: Right.
Riggs: It's crazy.
Estrella: And the rest of it is just going into the ocean?
Riggs: Right, or into the groundwater, right? So it's either being injected into what's called the aquifer, which means the groundwater or rivers, the ocean. In many countries, it's thrown away dirty. In America, we do a better job, but still we have a lot of dirty water being dumped. Let me tell you, it's not a pretty picture.
Estrella: Right.
Riggs: So we have to do a better job. And the other thing is we need justice for everyday people. I like to say, it's a bit corny, but, "Free the water." I like to say that.
Estrella: I love it.
Riggs: Well, because we're being told, "You got to take shorter showers." And, you know, I know it's like, life is hell for you if.
Estrella: You see this hair, it can be. I need those showers.
Riggs: So unless you want to be rough and tough, you want those showers.
Estrella: Right.
Riggs: And what we're not being told is that people only use 10% of the water industry, and agriculture uses 90%. Why don't we go after the 90%? Make them recycle?
Estrella: I absolutely agree. And Water On Demand is that solution.
Riggs: Exactly.
Estrella: So when people invest in Water On Demand, not only are they improving their portfolio, but they're also helping the planet, right?
Riggs: Isn't that the beauty of it, which is too many people don't have enough savings? It's a sad fact that that so many people are still today in their 50s and 60s and they are living paycheck to paycheck. And we all know that you start investing early in your life if possible.
So everyone should invest, try to invest in something that's early enough that it's got potential. It's got potential for multiples as opposed to just going up a little bit like it could go hockey stick, right?
Estrella: Right.
Riggs: Now, nobody's guaranteeing that stuff. Nobody guarantees stocks. But if you do your homework and you say, okay, good concept, big need really helps the planet. And it's early on in the investing cycle.
Estrella: What about people that are skeptical or they're just scared because the market is crashing? I know you said that it is an early phase, so that is the time to invest. But to the people that are not sure, what would you tell them?
Riggs: What we like people to do is start small. We've learned that people who invest in our company OriginClear or its new startup Water On Demand, either one, they tend to reinvest. Why? Because they have a good experience. They see that things work out okay, that we're very responsive. I, every Thursday evening I do a briefing on Zoom. We're up to 190 so far, weekly briefings on Zoom.
So we're very transparent. We tell it all. And so you hear a lot. You get a lot of updates. We tell you what's going on and you tend to reinvest. So my feeling is, put what is small, the minimum is $1,000.
Estrella: Okay.
Riggs: The maximum is 10% of your annual income. So if you're making 100,000 a year, $10,000.
Estrella: Why should people invest in Water On Demand?
Riggs: Because right now is when we're building this capability. This is a new concept that has gotten tremendous support from higher end investors. Amazing. I can't believe how great these people are. They've been true loyalists to the Nth degree. But now as we expand, we don't want to get a bunch more high end investors. We want to get a lot of small investors, it's healthier.
For example, political campaigns that use a lot of small donations do better than the ones that use a few billionaires because it's more of a movement. We want to create a movement. So number one, it has that capability of creating a movement. Number two, now is when we're building these pilot systems and when we build the pilot systems, we get recognition from Wall Street to raise money from investment banks. We can do that, too, but we need to have those working systems and now is when we're doing it.
Also, we want to start making acquisitions, acquiring other companies to make our job easier. And we want to build the team that is going to manage all that. That's a lot to do. It's better to have a thousand people with a small amount than 100 people with a large amount. It's just healthier.
Estrella: So tell me about you.
Riggs: Well, thank you. But, you know, I have this unique mix of really eclectic background that I think really helps me today to tackle this monster challenge, which is this water industry. You know, I was raised internationally, so I have no home, which is kind of cool in that way. I think of myself more as a world person.
Then I went on to be in the nonprofit space, which means I got I got paid nothing for working like crazy. But that gave me this sense of like, I want to save the planet in some way, right?
Then I got involved in high tech, which I loved. It was so fast moving and. And to this day, I have this disruptive feeling about how you can really change anything with technology. Right? And throughout it all, it's been about water. I've been a professional sailor. I'm an addict for skiing, and we are going to have to get on the slopes. You know it. You know it.
I would love to. I'd love to. Yes, absolutely.
Riggs: So water is just my playground. And it's high time that we actually do something about our playgrounds, make sure we have them in years to come. My son, who's turning 25, he's skied all his life with me, and I want him to be able to keep doing it. Both for climate change, but also for the clean water.
Estrella: So you have created an opportunity for people to be a part of the movement.
Riggs: Isn't it amazing?
Estrella: Yeah. How do you feel?
Riggs: Our investors are so cool and they're so supportive. And we recently did an acquisition. We came up with the money in like less than three weeks.
Estrella: Wow.
Riggs: My gosh.
Estrella: I needed to hear all of this and sit down with you. And I'm hoping that it does help my followers out there as well, because sometimes you just don't know what to do with your money. You know, you work hard, you want to make the right investments and you want to make it in a place where you feel safe and it makes sense. So thank you for allowing me to be a part of the movement, the change, and the investment opportunity.
Riggs: And remember, water benefits us all.
Estrella: I mean, I'm sold. I've been sold. This is, I mean, this has been so informative. I hope it not only changes the planet, but also changes people's lives.
Riggs: This really, for me, drives a mission that I've been doing for several years where we can really make change happen in a completely new asset, which is water. How cool is that?
Estrella: I love it. I think. Thank you for building that opportunity, allowing people to be a part of the movement as well as myself. It's been very, very informative and I just really appreciate this. So thank you.
Riggs: Well, my pleasure. Because you've made it common sense to people and we, can't be too geeky and I love it, but you've made it accessible. So thank.
Estrella: You. Thank you. I appreciate it.
Riggs: That December interview, which was a good overall coverage of Water On Demand and especially this crowd funding, which I want to remind everyone, the preview round ends at the end of this month. And so anybody who's interested in doing it goes to www.waterondemand.net. Sign up because it is ending soon. It's only a pause. We will be relaunching after certain things happen, but for now that preview ends and you never know what might happen in the future. So I would suggest taking full advantage.
Thursday April 13th, briefing number 206, The World's New Water Network™.
Interesting facts, countries with the cleanest water.
Well, this is now, you know, Austria, Finland, Greece, Iceland, really all European countries. So Europe does a very good job with clean water. And I've experienced that myself. I've been amazed how clean the water is in those countries. But there's another side that is not so great. And Tom Liakos says, "Thanks for showing the video again."
All right, plastics. And cover a story which is pretty shocking. Here we go. So Joe Rogan was discussing this.
Joe Rogan: One is China.
Andrew: By a wide margin.
Joe Rogan: By a wide margin.
Andrew: Wow.
Joe Rogan: Countries polluting the oceans the most. Annual metric tons of mismanaged plastic waste and total amount ending up in global waters.
Andrew: I like how in New York, when you get a soda, even at a little, you know, 711 type place, they offer you a straw. Yeah. It's one of the last civilized things in life to be offered a straw.
Joe Rogan: You know what? I saw, there's a chart. See if you can find this of, you know, how we're supposed to be not using plastic straws anymore because turtles are dying. You know that. You know, people give you plastic. You know, they give you paper straws.
Andrew: I grew up with. I remember the six pack container, those plastic things. And you see the thing.
Joe Rogan: Yeah. Like the turtle that was, it restricted his shell. Have you ever seen that one? Yeah. Like it got around a turtle when he was little. And as he grew, the shell became like an hourglass. It was really gross. But there was this chart of the countries in the world that pollute the ocean the most, and it's fucking stunning. And if we stop using plastic straws, we're not going to put a fucking dent in it unless they do. Like, we're not even close to number one. We're not even close to number six. It's like the leading countries that pollute the ocean. I think number one was Philippines.
Andrew: I was going to say southeast. Why would Southeast Asia have that issue?
Joe Rogan: I would imagine that when people are very poor, the last thing they're concerned about is not polluting. I would think that I've.
Andrew: I've Seen those images of those giant like, icebergs of plastic junk.
Joe Rogan: Yeah.
Andrew: And I always hope that's not real.
Joe Rogan: Oh, it's real. Yeah. Boyan Slat is a gentleman who's been on the podcast before. He's developed this device for. It's like it sifts the ocean. It's like, it floats over the top of the ocean, and it has this collector that sucks up plastic. And then they take that plastic and use it and recycle it and make like eyeglasses out of it and all sorts of other different things. Okay, so number one is China.
Andrew: By a wide margin.
Joe Rogan: By a wide margin.
Andrew: Wow.
Joe Rogan: Countries polluting the oceans the most. Annual metric tons of mismanaged plastic waste and total amount ending up in global waters. This is fucking insane. So China is 8.80 metric tons. Indonesia is number two with 3.2. Philippines is number three with 1.9. You go all the way down to the United States is 0.30.
Andrew: Well, China's got no excuse because their GDP is way up there. They could actually manage it. But some of these other countries, as you mentioned, are definitely lower GDP relative to the United States and China.
Joe Rogan: Right.
Riggs: But here's KanekoaTheGreat who's done some wonderful posting threads around the Twitter files and so forth. But he also had this to say. So the top ten rivers that are responsible for 95% of the plastic dumped in the oceans are:.
Most of these, Yangtze — China, Indus — India, yellow is China. Hai He is China. Nile, Ganges is India. The Pearl River, which I believe and Amber are both in China. I believe Niger is of course the one down in Nigeria and Mekong being in Vietnam.
Here they are again, but Yangtze by a huge margin.
And there's the countries polluting the most.
And also plastic emissions per country. Actually, Philippines. Which is interesting because it's a slight difference there. But anyway, 2015, it was the Philippines.
Here we go. Here's here's the ten most polluting rivers, as you can see. Crazy. It's unfortunately, it's a very bad situation. So plastics is a tough situation.
Okay. Continuing pile up in banking and real estate. Oh, yeah. This is not fun. Let's take a look at what's going on here. Sudden fire sale of real estate loans. And we have here. All of a sudden a 105 billion record drop in loans and leases for commercial. US commercial banks. Commercial real estate is in trouble. Small bank loans, which are heavily invested in commercial real estate. Again, biggest weekly drop in eight years. Again, small bank real estate loans crashed right there, as you can see.
So we have a what you might say in Kevin Spacey's margin call, quote, "This is what the beginning of a fire sale looks like." So, again, we've been warning about real estate for some time. Parts of real estate are in good shape, but other parts are in deep trouble.
So with that, I'm going to continue because there's not much more that I can say about that, only that, you know, I keep saying that I believe that real estate, that all assets are overdone and it's good to get into a fresh asset as we are. We were in the news. We were quoted, apparently I'm an expert in under sink water filters, made some nice comments. This is, this is useful stuff. It gets me out there.
How to choose the best under-sink water filter. And I always recommend people to the Environmental Working Group tap water database to see what contamination they get.
And then this is a big deal. Why does my water bill keep going up? That's a big deal for people. Well, why does it go up? Inflation, obviously changing environment. Really what you need to think about is why is it costing more? And you should look at fixing leaks. Leaks are a big deal and eventually you could get into a recycling system. Which we don't do a lot of in the United States. Australia a few years ago, Australia invested in a lots of these and it was very, very useful for them.
US News and World Report, 50.8 million circulation, climate change and resource scarcity. We got quoted there. Climate change can lead to phenomena like altered precipitation patterns, droughts, but also, as we've seen, a lot of floods.
Here we are on Fox five being interviewed. Let's take a listen.
Julian S: The problem closer to home than people realize. Queen City News reporter Sydney Heiberger tells us why Mecklenburg County officials have previously been concerned about lead levels in school drinking water.
Sydney H: CMS voluntarily tested the drinking water in nearly 90 schools just a few years ago, and they found high levels of lead in 46% of them. A new report by Environment America Research and Policy Center gives North Carolina a C-minus when it comes to protecting kids, drinking water in schools.
Riggs: The older the water system, the more lead there is, unfortunately. And you can't solve it by changing the pipes. It's too late.
Sydney H: Though North Carolina only requires schools to test their drinking water one time, CMS voluntarily tested their water about five years ago. They found 41 of 89 schools had lead levels above the hazard threshold. According to their website, CMS either permanently took those consumption points out of service or repaired and retested them.
Riggs: Learning disabilities, of course, nervous system damage, impaired hearing, stunted growth, issues with blood cells. According to the EPA, there is no safe level for lead.
Sydney H: North Carolina announced they'll use $150 Million of their COVID money to test the drinking water in more than 3000 schools around the state over the next three years. If high levels of lead are found, water experts say installing filtration systems is one of the best ways schools can keep kids safe. But sometimes the smartest thing they say is to try to avoid contaminated systems altogether.
Riggs: Parents should provide their kids with a filtration bottle and educate their kids to drink from that. And the kid will be fine.
Sydney H: When CMS did their water testing in 2017 and 2018, the state hazard threshold was 15 parts per billion. Since then, North Carolina lawmakers have lowered that lead threshold to ten parts per billion. But some water experts say they won't be satisfied until that number is at one. Guys.
Julian S: All right, Sydney, thank you. People with flights to Florida can expect some delays if you're going into Fort Lauderdale. The airport will remain closed today until...
Riggs: In fact I'll be covering that Fort Lauderdale story shortly. Call it what you will call it, climate change. But it is a major big deal and we'll be talking about it.
Acquisition news, Water On Demand. Now, there's, really not a lot I can say about this, so I'm just going to go ahead and recap the announcements. Back in November 7th, we retained a law firm to explore a potential business combination with a Nasdaq listed Special Purpose Acquisition Corporation, which is basically these things are funded to acquire companies. December 29th, we actually became the sponsor of a SPAC called the Fortune Rise Acquisition Corporation.
On January 5th, we executed a letter of intent with this corporation under which fortune rise would acquire Water On Demand Inc. It is not binding and this is only intended to guide good faith negotiations.
February 7th we deposited funds to extend the period of time to consummate this business combination until May 5th.
And in the annual report which came out today from Fortune Rise, basically stated that the stockholders voted to approve an amendment to extend the period of time of the company all the way up to six times up to November 5th. And so that has occurred. And there's also been some redemptions of the funds which is expected. So in sum, we have another six months after May 5th in which to complete the merger. All right.
I told you about this Fort Lauderdale 1000 year flood, 25 plus inches. Here's USA Today reporting about it. Let's take a look.
Newscaster: Aerial footage showing residents in Fort Lauderdale being rescued after torrential rain.
Video posted to social media shows the severity of the downpour. Here, a pedestrian is seen swimming in a flooded street to safety.
Broward Sheriff: Estimate. We've had areas and pockets of our communities with surplus of 4 to 5ft. Roads that are simply impassable.
Newscaster: Preliminary reports showed about 64cm of rain had fallen in Fort Lauderdale, making it a 1 in 1000 year weather event, according to the National Weather Service.
Florida Resident 1: I've never seen this volume of water and I've seen Katrina. I've seen many more hurricanes. And I've.
Florida Resident 2: I've had the car stall in water before and so I'm just like, I'll just hang out. I've only lived in Florida for a couple of years, so this is completely shocking to me.
Newscaster: Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport had to shut down Wednesday evening, canceling nearly 400 inbound and outbound flights. Officials say it would likely not reopen until 5 a.m. Friday because of debris and the amount of flood water.
Mayor Trantalis: There were over 900 calls for service in our fire department and 300 of which were assisted by the Broward Sheriff's Office.
Newscaster: The 24 hour rain total in Fort Lauderdale is equal to almost 40% of the average for the entire year. More rain and local flooding are being forecasted for Thursday. Weather experts are expecting an additional 5 to 10cm of rain. And while damage so far appears to be extensive, luckily no deaths have been reported. Melissa Nakhavoly, City News.
Riggs: And this.
FOX Weather Anchor : Joining us now is Fox weather's Brandy Campbell live at Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood International Airport. And Brandy, again, just such an active and scary situation over the last 24 hours.
Florida Resident 2: That's right. This is one of the locations that saw a lot of flooding as those storms really stalled over this area yesterday, trapping a lot of people here at the airport in more than one way, just not the flooded roads, but they could not get out here via airplane. In fact, the airport announced just over an hour ago that all operations will continue to be shut down through tomorrow morning at 5 a.m. And right behind me is one of the main reasons why.
So if you take a look at this airfield, you can see it's almost like a lake out there. There's a lot of water out there. They also said that they're trying to clear some debris as well, working to restore partial operations on one run on one of their runways as well, as long as the current conditions do not worsen, because as we know, we do have more rain on the way later on today.
So at this moment, we have a lot of folks who are here at the airport. I've talked to a couple of people telling me that they're just going to make their way away from the airport. So if we take a look over here, we can see the folks who are just waiting here On the second level, this is where people will be coming in to leave the airport. So a lot of people with their luggage ready to leave. Outside of the airport, though, guys, there are still some roads that are impassable or have some flooding.
Riggs: All right. Well, enough of that. I think you get the general image. Here's the situation. The reason why I'm showing this is not just to be lurid, but to emphasize that what's happening with water is on the one hand, we have droughts. In other hand, we have excess rain. We saw that, of course, in the Pacific West, the west of America, a huge amount of rainfall.
And so we have a lot of unbalancing going on. This is stressing water systems even more. And this is adding to the problem that I've been describing with our water infrastructure. So that kind of tells that story. All right. Well, with that, I'm going to ask our panelists to join me and discuss things.
Estrella: Hi, everyone.
Riggs: I thought I would have a lurid story just before our discussion because, of course, it informs what's going on with water. Water risks. And what we're having more and more is the government is having to deal with these water risks increasingly. And that's why it's so important that business be segregated and do its own water treatment so it doesn't become part of the problem.
Ken: Well, can I say I told you so now? Right. We've. We've been yelling from the rooftops about this for a while. It's funny. Five years ago, you couldn't get people to pay attention to water. And it literally is the thing that I don't know. Is it the 24 hour news cycle or is it just so much worse? Right. It's hard to know, right? We knew it was really bad years ago, but I don't think the public had really become aware.
And, you know, the Ohio train wreck, the derailment, that seems to have intensified. Now, these water stories are coming faster and more furiously. Right. But it's not a surprise to hear that 95% of the pollution comes from one place or a couple of places. It is my goal and ambition that we can expand this idea that we have to international markets, so we could really begin to bend the curve.
I understand that's probably phase 3 or 4, right? But like you said, if we cleaned up the main water here in the United States. Globally, I mean, we've done a beautiful job for the health and well-being of American citizens for sure, right, we'll absolutely improve health, but being able to bend the curve globally is really where it's at.
Riggs: Well, okay, but you know, what's really happening is this, as we've covered on this show before, we have a pullback in globalization creating islands, regional islands. And so America, North America, the combination Canada, US and Mexico are going to be doing more and more of their own manufacturing. And our good friend Yamil reported that, who's our partner in Mexico, that there's 1,000,000ft² of deficit warehouse in the Tijuana/Ensenada area, 110% employment because already all the reshoring is happening at a rapid rate. What's going to happen is we're going to have a lot of factories come back to the US, Mexico and Canada, and they will be state of the art. They'll be the best, they'll be AI, they'll be automated.
Ken: And couple hundred mile supply chains, not 13,000.
Riggs: Right.
Ken: Right.
Riggs: They will have a their own integrated water treatment system because there won't be time to build giant central plants. That, I believe, is going to be our mission.
Ken: It's an interesting point. I hadn't thought of that. I was thinking about the manufacture, the reshoring of American, of North, we'll call it North American, North American manufacturing capability and economic growth has already begun it. We're not talking like, you know, Stuart Varney is not talking about it yet, right? But I think it was that gentleman, Jorge, that we met in New York said almost an identical comment about the Baja or Mexicali Peninsula. Okay, So it's happening quietly.
I didn't think. So, I was just thinking, oh, how great is that? That we'll have all this manufacturing capability to be able to address this trillion dollar gaping hole. It didn't occur to me, you're right, because things are not going to be built, they're not going to be able to jam all these businesses into the, within the reach of the centralized water system, right? Pretty wonderful, that system we put in that housing project recently. Right. So, you know, picture 10,000 of those dotting, you know, dotting the land. Right. That is, that's where it's at.
Riggs: This is why and it's funny, because you and I have been looking at this really cool company, Boxabl. And one thing they've done is they've created assembly line housing, right? And they're basically mother in law units that they build like a box. Box-able, box units. And they're doing a fine job of sort of like you can erect them in hours. This is the mission of Modular Water Systems, is to do exactly that, is to scale up these, boom bum bum, bum. Because as these businesses move back into the the North American area, they're going to need their water treatment because municipalities are going to say, sorry, we're overloaded, there's too much.
Ken: Yeah, Yeah. They said their goal was to get to a place in the future where they could do. One structure every three minutes. That seems absolutely bonkers to me. I mean, it's just, you know, you can't build a car in three minutes, you know, I just don't see it. But, um.
Riggs: Well, I mean, you know. Multiple, multiple assembly lines.
Ken: Right, right, right, right. The simplicity of our designs in terms of how the, the business end of it, what goes on inside, they could be preassembled and just literally just popped into these casings. We could we could have very, very rapid manufacturing capability.
Riggs: No we will.
Ken: What I'm, what I'm saying is, when I say could, meaning in the very, you know, in the relatively near term. In other words, it's not some far off, you know, Henry Ford fever dream, right? This is something that, we now, and dealing with some, we're, look we're fortunately affiliated with and associated with some absolute manufacturing and fabrication rock stars. People who, people who have run plants that have put out a million cars in a month, right? So, you know, that's, now that the, now that the world has caught up to our, you know, our message, so to speak. You know, it's kind of like, well, now we can come along. And they could be like, where were you?
Riggs: Right. And so what Dan Early has told us is he needs to do acquisitions fast. This is why we are doing this whole business combination thing. They'll be much more news about it. There's going to be a big deal that's going to happen. Two big deals are going to happen in the coming week. Number one is the filing of our annual report within the standard extension period. And number two, some very important news relating to Modular Water Systems and Water On Demand, which I can't get into. So those are two major events. The third major event is Ken is going to New York all by himself.
Estrella: Oh. All by yourself?
Ken: Yeah, I can, I can dress myself. I can comb my own hair. It's, I'm pretty precocious.
Estrella: I love it. And I wanted to add to everything. Ken you came in and you said that spreading the awareness, especially when it comes to water and with everything that's happening right now, we have major success in that area. I've been posting and people have been very, very interested and they don't know. It's like you said five years ago, you talked about water. They're like, what are you talking about now? They're like, wait, what? And they're asking questions and they want to know more and they want to know links. And it's exciting to see people pay attention. And they're realizing that this is a movement. And they're, we're catching people's...
Ken: Hearts and minds. Hearts and minds.
Estrella: Yes. Always.
Ken: And I'll bet and I'll bet the responses you get are super passionate, right? Super like, you know, rrrr, you know, and it's, it's...
Estrella: Absolutely.
Ken: So this was kind of like poking the sleeping bear. There was an unconscious, kind of subsonic like, sound going on. People intuitively understood and knew things weren't okay. Well, we're all running around. Listen, my children are not allowed to drink out of the water fountain in their school. They're not, they're not permitted. It's verboten, right? They have to bring the RO (reverse osmosis) water from my house to school. And if they run out, they got to run downstairs to mom who works in the cafeteria and she'll give them a bottle of water. Like that's the that's their marching orders, you know.
We're not doing that because everything's okay, right? So, I think, I think social consciousness has risen to a level where, the social consciousness has actually risen to meet our vision, which was kind of happening, it was falling under, I mean, you know, when Riggs used to talk about decentralized water, people were like, "What?" You know what I mean?
So, you know, and that was in 2016, it's 2023. It's, you know, seven years and it's now become, "Oh decentralized, yeah, absolutely." Right? We get asked all the time, why haven't, why hasn't nobody thought of this before? Because technology's only really made it possible in the last decade. So every now and then, all the roads kind of meet at one point. But what we needed most was for the world to understand that there was a problem. And I think we are well past that.
Estrella: Absolutely. I do agree with that. And I just love that people are going on these platforms and actually talking about it.
Ken: Love it. Love it. Um. Five years ago. Every business owner I knew knew about this. But the average person like you're dealing with the average guy, right? He turns on his water. The water works fine. What are you talking about, right? He's not like that anymore. But five years ago, they were. We used to talk about it all the time. You know, you start mentioning sanitation, people are like, "Oh, I'm out of here." You know what I mean? But now it's, you know, you're doing a great job and thank God. Thank God people are waking up because, you know, we don't have, we don't have a lot of time to start making a difference.
Estrella: Absolutely agreed.
Riggs: Okay. So with that, I'm going to only mention one other thing, and that is that we announced yesterday that we had brought in a specialist in overseeing short selling, because essentially we started to understand that the short selling going on.
There is a technical analysis that I did which showed that this orange line here shows friction factor. When friction factor goes negative, then you are getting lots of shorts. And when the announcement came out, the friction factor went positive and so did the price. So that's good news.
Now, just to explain what's going on here a little bit, we have regulation SHO requires bona fide, which means appropriate market making activities. And here's the thing. The bona fide market making does not include activity that's speculative selling strategies or is actually where the market maker does not post at or near the best bid. And so a market maker that continually executes short sales away from its posted quotes would generally not be engaging in bona fide market making.
The only people who can short a stock on the over-the-counter market is a market maker. We have about a dozen of these. And so what was happening was market makers were taking advantage and we kind of called them on it. Right.
So I'm not going to comment further on this, but we this is a six month contract with the Buyins people. They have very good technology. They'll be tracking this. They'll be reporting, making reports. And you can click on this If you go to our to our website, you can see what the well, if you didn't get a 404, but there is a here, I can find that and this shows short sellers and this information is very useful information.
Ken: I mean, look at those lines.
Riggs: Yeah. Yeah.
Ken: Crazy.
Riggs: All right. So I'm not going to overdo it, but I'm just saying that we are policing this because it's not fair trading.
Ken: No.
Riggs: All right.
Ken: What I say, what I often say Riggs, I'm almost relieved that it was short selling because that's technical. It's inorganic. It's not a reflection of the company and shorts have to cover eventually. If you keep doing the right thing and building a good company and putting out good news. Shorts aren't going to remain short.
Riggs: Well, exactly. And. There's going to be good news. I feel.
Ken: I didn't say a word. I didn't say a word.
Riggs: I'm saying good news is on the way. We love what's happening. And we just didn't want the technical side to be hurting it, which is what this is about. Well, so, Estrella, I'm so glad that you're getting lots of really good feedback from your following. That's wonderful. I appreciate the advocacy and I'm having so much fun right now. This is, you're right Ken, it's like, people are like, whoa, yeah, water. Water is in trouble. Oh, my gosh. People are getting it. The complacency that I was dealing with, you know, as long ago as ten years ago, it's vanished. People.
Estrella: Yeah. And yes, we know a little bit more and we can't talk about it, but I think people can just feel the vibrations and it, and it just attracts them and it gets them excited as well. So I can't wait until we can talk about it.
Ken: Cue the Phil Collins song.
Riggs: Go ahead.
Estrella: The what?
Ken: Cue the Phil... It was before you were even born. I can feel it in the air tonight. Never mind. 80s reference, 80s reference.
Riggs: Estrella's heard I can feel it in the air tonight. Of course, "Oh, Lord."
Ken: Oh, by the way, let's wish Estrella. Happy birthday. She just turned 29.
Riggs: I think we did it already. But we'll do it again. Absolutely.
Ken: Did we do it last week? I think we didn't.
Riggs: Know what? It's all about birthday months. That's it.
Estrella: I'll take it. Thank you, guys.
Riggs: All right. Thank you, everyone. Stay tuned next week.
Ken: Yes, Felicia, it is a great song. And that's a that's a woman from my era. She gets it.
Riggs: So, all right, old timers, you know, us young ones. We don't know what you're talking about.
Ken: Yeah, I know. I got it.
Riggs: Anyway, there will be. There's a new company deck that will be, I'll be showing next week that reflects some of the news coming out. I won't be able to discuss it now, obviously, but lots of things are going to happen in the next few days. Stay tuned. I'll be reporting next Thursday. Should be a lot of fun. So.
Estrella: Well, can't wait.
Riggs: Everyone, James Wright, "It's electric, stay tuned." And yes, James definitely knew Rocky French back in the day at Coachella. That's a whole other story. James Wright, "Hit the 55 milestone." Tom Liakos, "Thank you everyone." All right, kids, have a good night.
Ken: Good night.
Estrella: Good night.