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Published by Euroasia Magazine December issue 2009
WATER IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING
Atlantis is a company formed in Australia thirty years ago to build green cities and to eliminate water contamination and excessive heat-radiation. In conversation with Bob Combes & Stephen Herd, International Business Development Manager, enthuses about the underlying concept and vision of the company, and explains why it is enjoying such phenomenal growth and world wide acceptance.
 In all our cities around the world we have created enormous areas of asphalt and concrete buildings which act as an impervious surfaces and radiators of heat explains Mr Herd. This has resulted in huge amounts of rainwater being contaminated through surface run-off into our drains and then discharged into our waterways, because there is little or no soil and vegetation to infiltrate the water where it falls. These impervious areas create heat islands as vegetation is replaced by asphalt and concrete for roads and buildings, and heat is reflected rather than absorbed. This is in stark contrast to the situation in natural environments, where infiltration occurs naturally, purifying the water and where there is virtually no run-off. The latter situation is known as point source collection and differs from traditional drainage methods which result in rainwater becoming heavily contaminated with solid objects like Coke cans and chemicals, such as detergents, hydrocarbons, pesticides, antibiotics and hormones with all the environmental concerns that derive from such “drainage technologies.”
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Messages from water
Mr Herd continues, “Existing traditional drainage systems are designed so a small water source drains into a larger one and soon, until the water flow gets faster and faster causing laminar flow in the concrete drainage channels and pipes.
As a result, the water becomes polluted and degrades the receiving water and it needs to be decontaminated and purified before it can be used. In contrast, with a point source solution where water is manage at source by infiltration and purification, we have; virtually no run-off, no flash flooding, no garbage and other pollutants in the water. Instead, the water is collected and purified where it falls, through infiltration.
It, therefore, makes good sense to install systems for trapping and filtering the water throughout gardens in urban areas. In addition, our approach is to reduce the heat island effect of global warming and also the tremendous amounts of energy required to heat and cool our buildings, by simply bringing nature back into our cities, for example, The Atlantis Green Roof & Green Wall Technology. A ready source of the best quality water is fast becoming one of the most important issues throughout the world today and capturing rainwater is one of the purest, finest, sweetest and easiest available water sources to tap into. As the Japanese author, Masura Emoto, says in his book, The Message from Water, ‘We know that human life is directly connected to the quality of our water, both within and all around us.’ “Mr. Emoto discovered through resonance photography many fascinating differences in the crystalline structures geometry of water from many different sources and different conditions around the planet, by freezing samples and photographing the crystals as visualised by a resonance field microscope. Water samples from pristine mountain streams and springs showed beautifully formed, translucent geometric designs in their crystalline patterns. Polluted and toxic water from industrial and populated cities and stagnated water from water pipes and storage dams showed distorted and randomly formed crystalline structures that were also often discoloured. Therefore, it is in our best interests to take good care of water. Our approach is based on the premise that the best and purest water is that collected directly from the sky in a garden subjected to infiltration. Under natural conditions water directly filters through the soil and down into the bedrock where it is stored, forming a natural aquifer. Here at Atlantis our systems are essentially replicating nature, storing water with amazing purity and achieving similar results as a natural spring. Now, if we look at our cities, there is a huge difference in concepts, with myriads of drains directing contaminated water into our waterways, on a massive scale and we have been doing it for at least two thousand years, since the Roman times. The water eventually arrives at the ocean or at sewerage plants where large amounts of money and energy are expended in decontaminating before it is just discharged into our Ocean’s Mr Herd explains. So, here at Atlantis, we are recreating the natural process of infiltration in our cities, by replicating a natural vegetative environment, were we find there is about 99% infiltration of rainwater and 1% run-off, whereas, the opposite is true, in our cities TODAY!! Current planning regulations are changing fast in favour of a healthy environment in just about every country. Unfortunately we are still seeing a lot of resistance to this new approach. As Hydraulics have focused for thousands of years on installing drain systems at the expense of nature and the environment, and this has resulted in urban sprawl, and increased levels of atmospheric and waterborne contamination. Our philosophy is that it would be better to infiltrate the water at its source, and recycle it on site safely.
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Ecological cities are the only solution
 Mr Herd explains, “In the middle of our cities, one of our main solutions to this problem is the introduction of roof gardens and green walls. A roof garden or a green wall is a roof or wall, either free-standing or part of a building that is partially or completely covered with vegetation, soil and or organic growing medium. They are also referred to as living roofs/walls, bioroofs and biowalls, or horizontal and vertical gardens, respectively. In addition to the positive effects of infiltration of rainwater, they also provide cooling and air filtering benefits and they consume and capture CO2. However, each of these structures is unique, and needs to be designed specifically with the following considerations; local weather conditions, humidity, height, exposure to wind, rain and sunlight, indoors/outdoors and so on. “We have in-house environmental engineers,landscape architects and biologist with over 70 years collective experience and we have been working on environmental problems long before these issue became mainstream. We are highly critical of conventional solutions to drainage and this has been controversial and unpopular since we have attacked civil engineering solutions very hard. However, it is the poor University training of Engineers and Architect in water management that is at fault, as they typically only receive around 36 hours devoted to the subject of hydrology. As a result, most designers and engineers have not really been exposed to the best ways to create and design sustainable water management solutions, in urban areas.”
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Learning from the Romans – what not to do
“Unfortunately, the concept of hydraulic water management that we have adopted in our cities was originally developed more than 2,000 years ago, by the Romans in their planning of big cities, like Rome. The Romans ignored the tradition that recognised water as being the essence of the cosmos and the first element of creation, ideas developed by the ancient Greek philosophers and writers, Pythagoras (500 BC), Hesiod (700 BC) and Plato (235 BC). The Romans use drinking water in Rome from the Tiber and at the same time they discharge all there rubbish into it. The river becoming channelized with impermeable walls and become increasingly polluted after the installation of a drainage system in the city and with the growing population. Their answer to this growing problem was to construct as many as 19 aqueducts to supply Rome with pure water from a range of natural springs and aquifers surrounding the city.” Mr Herd explains that early on in the piece, Atlantis become aware that this Roman town planning approach was not sustainable and so we dedicate our lives to creating ecological solutions for our houses, suburbs and for our cities. The Atlantis Water Management systems are a point source infiltration and detention storm water management system comprised of 95% void structure products, wrapped in geotextile for use in a wide range of water management applications. The products are made of recycled polypropylene wrapped in geotextile, which is also composed of polypropylene, and then the system is combined with soil and vegetation. Water is infiltrated by installing one of these systems in place of drains in a variety of applications. In this way, run-off and flash flooding of rainwater is eliminated. We have about 20 or so different products which lend themselves to hundreds of different applications totally focused on creating green cities, eliminating contamination, reducing the heat island effect and capturing, purifying and storing water through infiltration. Some of the typical applications of Atlantis technology include: Infiltration & Detention Water Tanks, Rainwater Harvesting Tanks, Ecological Roads, Streets, Highways, Channels & Swales, landfills, Leach Drains, Domestic Housing, Roof Gardens & Planter Box Drainage, Green Walls, Tunnels, Permeable Paving, Wall Drainage, Sports Fields & Golf Courses, Civil Works & Railways.
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Infiltration systems
“In roof gardens, we actually create a perched water table,” informs Mr Herd. “This can store approximately 76 litres of water per square metre of area covered. The crosssection of the system comprises a 30mm drainage cell at its base, then the geotextile cloth above, covered by a layer of sand and then a soil mix with vegetation on top. As the rainwater filters through the garden, water hits the geotextile and backs up, filling the pore spaces in the soil creating the perched water table reservoir. This type of infiltration arrangement creates an individual ecosystem, as the collected water feeds the vegetation, which uses some of the water thereby returning humidity to the soil. The excess water can be collected and used for other purposes. In addition, the area is cooled in hot weather because the vegetated surfaces absorb, rather than reflect, the sun’s heat. At the same time, there is some retention of heat and insulation of buildings from frost in cold weather creating more comfortable temperatures and humidity for habitation. The humidity is controlled by the process of evapo-transpiration from the leaves of the vegetation. In addition to all these benefits, the environment is enriched with green and bright colours from vegetation and flowers, and the release of negative ions improves the air for breathing and increased local consumption of CO2 occurs.” Atlantis also produces and supplies a range of systems for roads (sometimes called ecological road systems), which includes the Atlantis® Matrixconcrete buildings which act as an impervious Tank Modules, Atlantis® Turf Cell™, Atlantis® EcoSoil®, Atlantis® Drainage Cell and the Atlantis Permeable Road -Turf Cell® grass reinforcement structure. As the individual names of the systems imply, they are based on the same concept of water infiltration, permeability and collection, but usually involve varying different solutions to solve the environmental challenge. The systems are installed under roads when they are constructed, but we also have swale systems that are installed along by the sides of road (Atlantis® Grass Swale Infiltration System).” Mr Herd clarifies, “These have a void spaces for water capture over which permeable soil is placed to support the growth of an indigenous grass species. In addition, we have designed water harvesting solutions for car parks and sports-fields. In most of these systems, the water is stored in interlocking Matrix Tanks which are designed to be load bearing, capable of resisting weights from 20 tonnes per square metre up to 270 tonnes per square metre. The Matrix Tanks act like a structural column, creating a 95 percent void space internally. They are constructed and installed on site and then covered with a minimum of about one metre of permeable soil and vegetation.”
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Sudden inspiration
The idea of forming a company based on the above ideas was originally conceived by the company’s Chief Executive Office and owner, Mr Humberto Urriola, about 30 years ago. At the time, Mr Urriola was designing a roof garden for a penthouse in a suburb of Sydney. There was a gravel drainage system that had failed and water was leaking into the building due to run-off and structural faults. Instead of installing a new drainage system, as recommended by a structural engineer which, would have merely led to a re-occurrence of the same problem a few years later, he suddenly realised that the answer was to install a drainage cell in the roof garden to avoid run-off of water into the building. From that simple beginning, the company has never looked back. Mr Herd notes, “Mr Urriola is incredibly passionate about the environment, the Atlantis mission and its many application, and he is still the driving force behind the company, and is continually inventing new product lines based on the same underlying concept of infiltration. The name, Atlantis, was registered in 1986. The period from 1980 to 1985 was taken up with creating new design concepts and we launched our first 40 millimetre thick drainage cell in 1986, followed by our first original 30 millimetre thick drainage cell in 1988. The following year saw the launch of the first original strip filter pipe, and the first original 15 millimetre thick drainage cell in 1990, and our first original drainage cell tank module – the Aquacube®, in 1993, which forms the basis of the crate systems developed subsequently. “We utilise approximately 3,000 people worldwide and our head office is located in Sydney, Australia, where we manage our distribution network worldwide, through whom we sell our products. We also work with business partners throughout the world, and we have a number of strategic manufacturing locations. We support, assist and train these sales and marketing people. Our systems are produced in Australia, Malaysia, Spain and Chile, and we have a geotextile strategic partner, called Edilfloor based in Italy – who makes the best geotextile products. There are many geotextile manufacturers around the world but many of their products are not suitable for our purposes, as they repel water. Of course, we want the systems to attract it so that the geotextile can be used as a filter. We estimate that the systems will last in excess of 100 years, as polypropylene is inert and is out of sunlight and cool when buried in the ground. We have installations that have been successfully working in situ for more than 25 years. “Our distributor network is very strong particularly in the US, Canada, South America, UK, Europe, the Middle East, Thailand, Malaysia and other south east Asia (Asiana), and we’re obviously very strong in Australia and New Zealand. We get a lot of interest from around the world from companies who would like to be our distributors. The environment is a universal language and we find that attitudes to it are broadly similar in different countries. Water is becoming a major problem and the way we deal with it is becoming very important. People are beginning to realise that desalination is not the answer because it is costly, energy intensive and only really feasible near the sea. Many companies are frantically investing in desalination and there has been a lot of investment in the technology. Certainly, it provides a quick fix, and it is now a known and trusted approach. However, not only is it inefficient and energy-intensive, the water produced has to be transported over large distances.”
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A Swelling Business
 “We fervently believe that the answer is to collect rain water and storm water by infiltration, and this is the message that we have been shouting for a long time. We have generated massive interest in our systems and are now dealing with councils on a city level for some of our projects, and with sites as big as 63 hectares in area. We work closely with designers and architects as well as building contractors and we bring in certain specialist contractors for specific projects. “The business has expanded by a process of organic growth and by forming strategic partners with whom we collaborate. Our phenomenal success is mainly due to our activities having a sound scientific basis combined with a passionate vision and entrepreneurial spirit. We have competitors that have started up in the last few years, who have simply copied our technology. However, we were the original inventors of the principles and the systems, and there is huge interest in our ideas. Peoples concern for the environment is moving at a rapid pace, and the fact that we have 30+ years experience in dealing with the environment, we are perfectly positioned and probably one of the only companies around that can provide the necessary solutions. We think outside the box, but always with the environment coming top of the agenda. In addition, we have an excellent reputation and we are viewed as a loyal, trustworthy and ethical company. For example, we have partners with whom we have been working with for more than 20 years, and we have many other good customers with working relationships based on a handshake. “The future for Atlantis is very bright and we anticipate growing rapidly in line with market demand. We shall continue to expand and diversify by having an ever increasing number of partners around the world. We have recently taken on new staff at our head office, and we have a new office and warehouse in Victoria, two warehouses in Sydney and we have two manufacturing sites now in Australia. We have distributors and sales staff in every state in the country and will be increasing our presence abroad. Expansion is the only way forward for us – there has been no recession or decline in business as far as we are concerned. In fact, the challenge for us is to be able to cope with all the business.” It is difficult not to be caught up in the enthusiasm and optimism of these words. Clearly, Atlantis is a company that has always been moving forward and, with no signs of its passion and drive diminishing, it will continue to provide worthwhile, much-needed and sensible environmental solutions to the problems of water management particularly in our cities and urban areas in the years ahead.
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