Fairmount Minerals, Aqua Clara to provide inexpensive water purifiers for safe drinking water

CHARDON, OH, Feb. 5, 2008 -- Fairmount Minerals, a leading producer and supplier of high-grade filtration media and silica sands and gravels, has agreed to supply the financial support, filtration materials, and technical assistance needed to place 1000 economically viable water purification systems in four countries by the end of 2008.

Fairmount has aligned with the Aqua Clara Foundation, a non-profit, Christian-based group focused on developing unique, inexpensive chemical and physical systems to locally generate sustainable supplies of potable drinking water. The Aqua Clara Water Purification system is a "point of use" filter that cleans and disinfects otherwise polluted water without boiling.

As part of Aqua Clara's "Sustainable Clean Waters of Life 1000 Initiative", these "point of use" units are being placed in locations within Kenya, Mexico, Nicaragua and Peru, where disadvantaged communities rely on rainfall, polluted ponds, and unsanitary shallow wells for their drinking water. The program's goal is to reduce exposure to preventable water-borne diseases like typhoid, cholera, dysentery, and parasitic infections...child by child...family by family.

According to Bob McDonald, Aqua Clara Director, "In addition to providing clean water, our focus is on increasing industry in the region. We want to teach local businesspeople to make the purifiers and sell them to support their families. The purifiers are cost effective and contain no moving parts. Once people experience the difference clean water makes and value its importance, we're confident they will buy these units to use in their homes. The result will be a win-win...a community with sustainable water and sustainable employment."

Fairmount Mineral's role is to supply financial and in-kind support, including technical expertise and materials for the filtration, disinfection and sand-coating process employed in the filters. According to Chuck Fowler, CEO and President of Fairmount Minerals, the first, locally owned business in Kenya involves the production and sale of family sized filters plus the installation of a large water filtration unit housed on a campus of the centrally-located school complex. "The combination of small and large filters provides a primary water supply for the campus, medical clinic, and village people plus "point of use" units for the region's schools and small communities, making an immediate and lasting impact on the population's quality of life," said Fowler.

Fairmount Minerals, headquartered in Chardon, Ohio, is one of the largest producers of industrial sand in the United States

###