How to avoid the use of Toxic Chemicals in our Waterways? And why have people become so dependent on shortcuts that often create bigger problems in the long run? | A Conversation with Tara Lordi | Audio Signals Podcast With Marco Ciappelli and Sean Martin

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SPEAKERS

Marco Ciappelli, Sean Martin, and Tara Lordi.

Show Intro  00:15

Welcome to the intersection of technology, cybersecurity, and society. Welcome to ITSPmagazine podcast radio. You’re about to listen to a new episode of audio signals get ready to take a journey into the unknown, the unknown and everything in between. record that no specific point in time nor space ITSPmagazine Is co founders Marco Ciappelli. And Shawn Martin followed their passion and curiosity as they venture away from the intersection of technology, cybersecurity, and society to discover new stories worth being told. Knowledge is power. Now, more than ever

Sean Martin   01:10

Marco, when was the last time you drank dirty water?

Marco Ciappelli  01:19

Drank dirty water? Define dirty water. Is it just the water that is not clear? Or is actually dirty? Does whisky qualify as dirty water?

Sean Martin   01:32

I think any of that could be the truth. But I, you know, I go backpacking, and you don’t just scoop up a cup of water and drink it, you have to put it through a process sometimes with with electricity, sometimes with tablets, sometimes with a filter. Somebody does all that for us to drink it. Right. But hopefully what happened? Are your sources, your scores. But I think obviously I’m teasing a little bit about water here if it’s in terms of drinking, but there’s other types of water around the country as well. And so I’m interested to hear how water plays a role in everything we do and what we need to do to protect it.

Marco Ciappelli  02:29

Well, I think there is the shortcut, which is you use chemicals, but then you end up drinking it if we’re going to stick with your metaphor, which I have to say for people watching the video. They see there is Tara with us. Hi, Tara. We’re getting somewhere. Don’t worry. We’re getting late we will. For those listening, just know that this is not just me and Shawna, as usual, just trying to go somewhere that we don’t know where we are. But it always started like this. I have no idea what Shawn is gonna ask me. And so sometimes I’m like, I don’t know. But yeah, I can see that.

Sean Martin   03:07

I was gonna go with weeds. But I decided not to talk about weeds yet. And Nick was more natural. I’m in the weeds.

Marco Ciappelli  03:17

I’m kind of like climbing on, on, on. I don’t know, on a mirror here to get out of this. So I’m kind of tempted to just pass the ball to Tara, Tara, Lord and tell us what, what what she does and who she is. I know you are in Florida. So I think there’s a connection already there. But you tell us more about yourself. And then I’ll try to find the connection with drinking water when you go hiking. I don’t know how I’m gonna do that. Tara, how are you?

Tara Lordi   03:47

I’m good. Thank you, Marco. And Shawn. It’s nice that you’ve had me on you. Have you have me on your show. I’m, I’m happy to talk about water. I’m happy to talk about some of the issues that we face on the planet. And how we have solutions to face that we face on the planet. Drinking water is super important. But we’re going to focus a little bit more today on freshwater, which is your lakes, streams canals. We’re talking about freshwater not saltwater. Let’s stay focused on water that’s inland. So I started a company about in 2010. So we’re talking about 23 years ago with my husband, my late husband. We started a company because he came from Toronto. I came from the Catskills in New York, which is really, really beautiful area. And we would you know constantly go cliff diving and jumping off rocks and strapping canoes at the top of our cars and water was a very, very important aspect of our upbringing, mountains and climbing and so on and so forth. You got the picture. One day we noticed that there was to sign and it said no swimming for 24 hours. Well, that’s interesting. And on the back of the sign, it had the components of what they had sprayed in that lake as to why they didn’t want you to swim for 24 hours. So when you read the components, you started looking at the ingredients, and you saw the words like copper sulfate. That’s really scary stuff. We saw some other ingredients. But the bottom line is all of these chemical companies are making these concoctions that cause what’s called cellular death. And the reason why they’re making these chemicals to cause sailor death is because they have these unsightly invasive weeds. So you say to yourself, well, I don’t want the invasive weeds either. So let’s nuke the water and hope that it will kill the weeds. But now let’s think about what we’re doing here. So can fish rate, I don’t think so. So a fish can’t read and your nuking water, but a human, you can tell them not to swim for 24 hours, then that human goes into their little canoe with their fishing pole and goes fishing for some bass then brings home dinner and puts it on the plate and says come on family, let’s go and eat this fish that I just caught. That’s been sucking on tablets, or however they’ve dispersed the chemicals. Now we’re talking about some serious stuff here. Alright, so I made it a point, my husband and I both to understand why they were spraying these chemicals because they didn’t have a way to remove them efficiently. Okay, they didn’t have a way at the time, they had these large barges, or they had people hand pulling in suits, which is very expensive in these wetsuits. So we said, Okay, we see the problem there, they’re spraying chemicals, because they need to get the weeds out. But they don’t have a way to do it efficiently. So they’re resorting to chemicals. So before we you know, judge them, let’s give them an alternative to remove the chemicals. And that’s what we did. And we developed a 12 foot vessel. It’s kind of like a skid steer for the water on a water tractor. And that tractor has the ability this we do what’s called we do we do green voting is the company we do is our product, it has the ability to remove 500 pounds a minute of biomass. And that’s a really important aspect. Because we can go in, we can remove the weeds, and we take them on, we put them on the lakes edge. Now, instead of spraying chemicals, they’re not going to sink to the bottom of the lake, they’re not going to reduce the levels of your lake, they’re not going to harm your aquatic life. And you get immediate satisfaction. So it makes sense, right?

Marco Ciappelli  07:44

Then you can put it in a glass and give it to Sean so he can drink it. So here, here’s a connection…

Sean Martin   07:54

We put it in the mixer.

Marco Ciappelli  07:56

Here’s the connection on how we started. Now, let me let me go somewhere. Let me take this point on a more philosophical, if you if you will. Level, which is as human we always look for are the shortcuts. And I think in the past 20 3050 years, we’re taking so many shortcuts that then we realize, yeah, seemed like they solve that problem, but actually made it much bigger problem, which is exactly what you you tell us here is like, Okay, you’re killing the weed, but you’re also killing and damaging everything else on a much larger scale. And does it make sense? So I think we are in a point in our society now that we’re looking back, and we’re fixing the bad stuff that we’ve done in the past, and that goes in food preparation, all the chemicals we put in there it goes in the environment, it goes in all of that. So as an example, where you do come from a passion for protecting the environment and doing the right thing. What’s your take on this into when you look at it more like other industries, either in other different places in the world on? Why did it take so long and be wise, it’s still so hard to convince people that there is a good way to do it. Versus the shortcut that it may not be as good is it just money? You said mentality? I mean, what what have you learned in these years in, in the industry?

Tara Lordi   09:36

So your first question is, you know, why? Why are we even

Marco Ciappelli  09:41

doing Why Are we stupid?

Tara Lordi   09:43

Why why are we why are we? And honestly, your your question is also the question I asked myself there are other countries that have banned herbicides in the lawn, and they’re not being ignorant, they care about their waterways. Why are we so And that dovetails into, is it because they don’t know? Well, I think the EPA is pretty privy to what goes on. So I would say it’s not about ignorance. So then the second thing I asked myself is agreed. Is it big pharma and EPA in a great situation? That’s a pretty big allegation. Right? So I don’t know. I mean, I, I honestly don’t know the answer. Because for me, I’ve given a solution that when you spray, and I can give you a real testimony, when you spray, I have a municipality that purchased a boat of one, three years ago, and all they did was spray. The first year they purchased my vessel, they turn their spring into half, they reduced their spring by half. The second year, they bought a second boat, reduce their spring by nearly three quarters, the third year, they bought a third boat, and now they’re not spraying at all. And they said to me, Tara, on a mathematical certainty, we’re saving money with the vessel opposed to spraying. Because not only are the plantlife getting used to what we’re spraying, which is causing us to spray more. But it’s actually once you buy the boat, you own the boat, you don’t have to keep spraying. So mathematically, it doesn’t even make sense why they haven’t made the decision. So I’m going on, I’m going on greed, I’m going on crazy, because you have to be pretty much a moron if you want to keep spraying. Nobody has given me a scientific reason to spring haven’t because I’ve developed this I’m

Sean Martin   11:35

the moron and I’m gonna give you the reason. I’m just wondering, so. So I’m interested in some of the side effects of spring because you mentioned that spring kills it, they drop into the, into the lake, and like rises or creates a bass that maybe you didn’t you don’t want them to like, what are some of the other side effects? Of course, I can connect my drinking water, right? This lake that gets sprayed is connected to other water streams underground that might impact drinking sources and things like that. What are some of the other side effects of? of sorry?

Tara Lordi   12:23

It’s a great question you don’t really know, as I’m not a scientist I’m not talking to or responding to as a scientist, I’m responding to you as a company owner who focuses on this quite a bit. But what I can tell you is this, the chemical compounds that they use, their intention is to call cause cellular death, right? So because they want to kill the cells that are keeping the growth. So I can also tell you, without being a physician, that our skin absorbs this chemical components. So when you spray, and you use that water to irrigate your land, or that water somehow seeps into your well water, or that water, you walk on it, or it’s involved in you, you’re going to absorb that through your skin. That’s the certainty of How badly is that going to impact or change your body on a cellular level? would be a question for scientists that we better start looking into. Because I promise you that the chemical compounds are using causes cellular death. And I promise you that that is going into your skin, whether you’re swimming, walking, drinking, eating food that animals have drank out of and you’re using them for your food source fish that you’re eating, and using that for a food source, it’s going into your body. Now, to what extent is it causing harm, they either are ignorant about giving us that final detail, or they can’t, because they don’t know how much a person has ingested. But I can promise you, I would rather you not use it at all.

Marco Ciappelli  14:00

Yeah, and you know, I mean that, that applies to many things that we say that we didn’t know, now let into gasoline, and you look back and it cause a lot of problem not only just environmental problem, but physical problem to people that leave, you know, in the 70s near street where the gas was very heavy and lead and all the kinds of stuff up. So ignorance is always the easy way out. Right? The other thing and I think you can help me try to understand this is that sometimes that’s the only solution. And you have to say, you know which one you’re gonna put it on a on two different sides and say yeah, we need to do these. It’s like taking medicine, you know, taking medicine is gonna be there’s gonna have a side effect, but you know, which one is better? So, then eventually you He made a new discover come out. And now it’s safer for you. So in your case, your example what you do? My question is the convergence of technology that allows us to do things that maybe 20 years ago, you couldn’t do it, you may have had this idea, but maybe going by hand with a take forever, maybe you didn’t have the same result. So just to be optimistic, and you know, and know that maybe that was the best way to do it. How do you think that technology now is can be driven and oriented to be used in a much more environmentally and human friendly way? Which is also what you do? But do we need that technology to be able to do it?

Tara Lordi   15:52

I think we’ve always possessed some level of technology, it’s just for what environment and what technology would suit us. So for example, I could put carp in a lake. And they can help, right, that’s a fish eating up weeds that can help to some extent. But chemicals are also more expensive. So I guess the question is, you really have two choices, you could do hand polling with divers. And that can be that can get expensive. Or you can use mechanical removal methods, I happen to be one of them. Not a lot of us in the space. There’s only a few one in Holland and Germany and Nate, think there’s a amphibious thing in Sweden, but pretty much you’re looking at it. Right? There’s only three of us. So I think if you just embrace mechanical removal, I think that is undoubtedly the safest and least expensive way of removing unwanted debris in a waterway. And let’s, let’s classify what unwanted debris is, right? So you have invasive weeds, there’s 2030, different species, right from milfoil, dock, we hydrilla and give you a list of things. And they all started because humans through the aquarium plants in poke body of water so that they can have better fishing. And that’s how most of these weeds started, by the way. And then the fish or the bird student, take some seeds and bring them to other lakes and so forth. But you know, your question is, is what technology can you embrace that fits economics that fit that fits reasonable effort? That is smart for the environment? What technology? That would be mechanical removal? Or human removal? Not? There is? No, I stopped because chemical needs

Sean Martin   17:48

sorry, if I can if I can interrupt? Because I’m, I’m curious, you talked about unwanted items in there. And I’m just wondering how, how precise is the removal? Or does the removal will have to be? Are there natural plants that we do want in there other natural things that we don’t want to disturb in there that the mechanical removal needs to be aware of? And if so, really technology help with any action?

Tara Lordi   18:17

Yeah, so precision harvesting is absolutely imperative. We have to be very responsible. You have to know your wheat. Sir, you really do need to be educated. So take a given body of water, like, you’re going to have what we call invasives, like we just discussed, and you’re gonna have natives, and those natives help with oxygen, they help with food source, they help with the chain of aquatic life. And so you’re 100% Right, so we we really have developed the front end of our attachments on our vessel to enable precision harvesting. I’m extremely, extremely important and a great question because a lot of people say, well, I’ll just nuke the lake and everything will go well. Okay, but why? Those frogs one of those lily pads, you could have reduced them and kept some. You know, there’s bulrush there’s, there are native plants that we need and the environments used to having them and it feeds a various amount of aquatic life. So yeah, you definitely need precision harvesting, and be educated about it. For sure.

Sean Martin   19:30

So let me talk about who that is. So I think you said your municipality is one I think we talked the high level EPA and he said not much is happening at that level. Who needs to know that this? Well, I guess are if they’re spraying they probably know that problem exists. How do they know that there are alternatives that are viable, and who has the conversation how to How do decisions get made? Maybe some insight into those conversations to help find a path that’s better than spring.

Tara Lordi   20:07

So education is the best, right? Let’s teach these. Let’s teach people as best as we can. And you both gentlemen are giving me the opportunity to try to help educate your listeners. Education is the best we need to inform people. First of all, you always, as you alluded to, in the beginning, where’s your water source coming from? Always ask yourself that you can be a 12 year old, you could be an adult, you can be municipality, you can be a homeowner, you can be an HOA, you can be where is your water coming from? Is it is it being contained? How is it being contained? How is it flowing? If your water is coming from a lake? How is it being treated? Is it being chemically treated as being mechanically removed? Is there soil testing being done? To get a soil test, you go to your local lakeside, you pull out some soil and about two feet of water and send it off to a lab and you want us here see the contaminants in there. There’s a lot of information on the web that talks about different weeds, invasive weeds and native weeds and what you should keep and what you shouldn’t keep. But I would say right now, to be honest with you, I’d say about half of our business is government. We’re on GSA, but we sell to municipalities we sold to the federal government. And they make a point in educating themselves and what they need to do. But the other half of my business or homeowner associations, individuals that are maintaining people’s legs for living, and they don’t come up from you know, they’re not biologists, they’re not oddness. They’re They’re people, regular people like us that are in the business of doing maintenance. And they do the research. And they say, in any given body of water, this is what needs to stay. This is what is invasive. This is how we remove it. And it’s very important that we do it in an educated way. And the research that’s available from Google to Chad GBT to any way you want to slice it, you can get that data in your given area. But I think the first question you have to ask yourself is what is happening to my local lake or my water that’s near me? Where’s my walk my drinking water coming from? And how is that being treated. And all of this is data that you can find, especially if the water is being maintained by state, federal, you know, Corps of Engineers, that data is available to you, it’s your right. The best and most scary, scary thing I found a particular example here in Florida, is in an effort to save money on your water bill. They’re putting a pump inside a lake near your homes, especially HOAs. Developers are doing it. And that pump is what irrigates your flowers, land, your grass, your walk paths. And people sometimes have their cute little gardens outside their house. And it’s like, just and I’m sitting there like, oh my god, do they even realize that they’re spraying these legs and they’re spraying their gardens with this exact water? So the answer to your question is you’ve got to ask, you’ve got to go out there. And where’s my water coming from? I like that I like to swim in. Does anybody maintain it? Who owns it? Who maintains it? Is it owned by the state federal? Is it owned by a person? These are questions we have to ask, ask ourselves,

Sean Martin   23:27

Like why are my Tomatoes so big?

Marco Ciappelli  23:33

Why are they why do they have spots that shouldn’t have? The dark? Why there is an eye on it? That is looking at me. It’s radioactive. Now. I mean, I look this is what we do with ITSPmagazine It’s we are focused on educating people and making them think so. The reason why we wanted to have this conversation seems like such a sometimes it’s like so dumb. Like why didn’t I think about that, but we’re also so driven by doing a quick dirty cheap we’ve always done it that way. I hate that’s the one I hated the most I hate that. We’ve always done it that way. It’s so white. First of all, you didn’t do it that way 100 years ago, I’m pretty sure you would chemical you know so that how far can we go with have always done it that way? So the price point I mean, what’s the hardest thing for you when you when you get to make a sale? You have somebody that says okay, I understand this, but this is what I got. Right? I mean, is there like a conversation sometimes there is so much cheaper to just drop the bomb the chemical bomb in there and I’m thinking these in your case, as a maybe the kids In a lot of other situations related to environment and solution that are efficient, but not so environmentally friendly. So where do we meet with, with the economical thing,

Tara Lordi   25:16

which is exactly why we designed the vessel that we did in the past prior to our existence, the only way you could buy a harvester, they’re usually expensive, very large, hard to get into smaller waterways, you had to use cranes, if they broke down, they’re more difficult to manage. So we built something that’s like 12 feet in length, it’s under $100,000. And once, if you buy this machine and you’re using it to operate your business, you’re gonna charge 1800 to 2000 a day. And in a week or two, you could pull out 500 pounds a minute, depending on how much biomass is there. Basically, within 50 days, you have your first boat paid off, if you’re buying this as a business, and 50 working days, first vessels paid off. Now, if I were somebody who did landscaping, aquatic landscaping for living and I was spraying chemicals, I would spray spray again. And then I’d spray and then I’d look at my bottom line. And I would say, Well, you know, I’m spraying I’m getting paid for it, I’m getting paid the same amount of money for spraying as I am for this machine. And I actually pay this machine off after 50 days. So but I don’t have keep buying tools. So mathematically, it’s a no brainer, right? So and 50, the first books paid off. But if you’re a chemical sprayer, you have to continue to buy, say, for example, you’re using bionic, you’re going to you’re going to spend 50,000 60,000 a year doing you know, 30 acres of lakes, I’m just using an example. Don’t hold me to it. But roughly, where you buy the boat and you’re done. Now you have the boat, and you just keep using the boat and, and going out and treating people’s legs. So mathematically, it’s a no brainer. It’s a return on your investment where chemicals you have to keep trading. They’ve also done a tremendous amount of study to sit on with these invasive weeds have developed their own tolerance to chemicals. So they might have sprayed this lake with a particular ingredient for some time. And all those weeds are like, hey, you know what, I got your number. So I’m going to develop ways, so that I’m resisting. And now they go and nuke it again. And again. Now they’re spending more money and trying to satisfy the customer because it gave their customer basically a number and said, This is how it’s going to be whether the customer is the government, or the customers or customer. I gotta keep knocking it because the weeds are coming back. And the customer says, Hey, you told me after he sprinted away? Well, it’s called resistance.

Marco Ciappelli  27:57

And that applies to animal to mosquitoes, you know, same same thing, you’re going to keep developing stronger and stronger chemicals. But I think that and then I’m going to pass the Shawn to wrap this conversation. But I’m also thinking that something like this, it happens in a lot of other industry. I’m thinking solar panel, what are you now getting the solar panel because they’re way more expensive than what you pay for electricity this month, but you need to project your calculation into into the future. And sure there was a point where it was not as good as for the price that you were paying. But technology is bringing the barrier lower. So I think that’s what allow you to run your business and justify it not just from an environmentally friendly perspective, but also from an economical one. So, so Shawn, the next time you drink water, what are you gonna do?

Sean Martin   28:58

I’m gonna swallow it, as long as I know where it came from. No. And I always have one more question. And I’m, I’m hopeful that we can go here, Tara, because I’ve been a product developer software developer for many years. And I kind of know what it takes to build software and have it the platform’s changed underneath and the delivery vessels change over time. I’ve never built a physical product like this, can you? I’m interested how a festival like this gets designed and created and is that something you can share a little bit about?

Tara Lordi   29:40

So manufacturing is a whole beast all on its own. Manufacturing is an industry where you have to develop steps. You have to allocate certain amount of time for each of those steps in order to determine your profitability and How you have to price things. So in our situation, we break up building this boat into seven phases. And all those seven phases, allocate a certain amount of time that it takes to build those products. Now, we build our vessels, I don’t send them out to some other country, we build everything, we have our own welding, I do buy Kubota engines, I don’t build those, I do buy those. There’s a few things that I do have to buy, but we build our votes. And when you are in control of your bills, it’s very important because when it comes to maintaining your speed at which that you build and the quality, those are two very huge factors in manufacturing, that either makes or breaks do, I also think that because we are manufacturing this vessel, in such a very strict manner, it’s very hard for others to come and compete and barriers to entry are therefore very, so to your question, we break up building the vessel into phases, and we allocate a certain amount of time for each phase, we build a fiberglass hole. Once we’re done with the fiberglass hole, we then start laying and mounting the components that go on top of the vessel. When the vessels done and ready, we do water testing. And as we do the water testing, we determine if everything has been built properly. We also have quality control and each age of building the vessel. So at each phase, we have QC and we usually have two individuals signing off. At any given time, something goes wrong in the water testing, I can look back into my charts to see what who was the tradesman, I have an unbelievably my, the people work at this company, I think believe in our agenda. It’s not just about getting a paycheck. They believe in what they’re doing. They’re proud of it, they love the idea that they’re going to work. And we’re building a product, the environment. So I believe that kind of goes that love and that kind of I think that acceptance goes into their trades, their trade work. And I love that. So you go through stages, and then you go to water testing. And when you go to water testing, you look for your final components. After you get a final hone in, and you’ve done your water testing, you’re presenting it to your client. And then you’re doing training, we really, really are always pushing whether they can do it online with us or they can do it in person. The boat is very easy to maintain. But we believe that it’s important to train people on preventative maintenance, check your fuel know where your fuel sources like your got your your diesel, make sure that you have a trusted source, make sure that you do your preventative maintenance, like your filters in your fastenings and your take care of your equipment. So we push that. But otherwise the manufacturing, use software that helps you maintain Gantt charts that keep you on target, you know over over deliver and under promise right? over promise under deliver does it backwards. Anyway, you want to make sure if you tell your client eight weeks I’ll have you build it in seven, right. I think that manufacturing though is its own animal I came from Wall Street I was in I was in it building my own software at one point in my life. I’ve had to read myself a few times just because either family member passed or, or what have you. And I can tell you that the manufacturing is a lot of fun. But you are very responsible for every step of the way and you better diarize and cross your t’s. It’s not for the faint of heart, it’s not easy. It’s not like having an HP 12 calculator and getting in your car and driving to a customer’s house. This is really serious stuff. And it requires we’re ISO 9001 certified. We take it very seriously, we take safety seriously. But most of all, I’m really a big Stickler in my warehouse for the way we put things away, the way we keep our tools. I’m very maternal and I want everything done into and I want to thing put away properly and things swept forth. So that’s about what I would say on a manufacturing standpoint and how we build it but every one of my clients are always welcome to come through any one of our buildings and even looking on Torial closet because I assure you they’ll see perfection and that I’m 100% sure

Marco Ciappelli  34:37

Wow, it’s beautiful. You’re really proud of what you do as you shoot and sounds like you’re extremely passionate and that’s that’s beautiful. You know I think you’re doing something you believe in and, and as we didn’t actually touch on this, but I’m going to close with this which is nowadays, we talk about, like having company brands stat stick with their vision and mission, and maybe their vision and mission is to do good for real, not that then you change it, I’m not going to talk about headline, like, tagline of company, they’ve changed in the technology industry. But the point is, you can do good. You can do give jobs to people, and, and, and make money and grow your business. So that’s, I think that’s how people need to look at the future of the economy and society and, and hopefully technologies coming in account to help to get that level where it’s affordable, it makes sense. And it makes sense for our futures as humanity. So with that said, I invite people to look at the notes here, will will share a way that you can get in touch with Tyra and learn more by what she does, and also reflect on what we talked at a larger scale and the societal level and even philosophical way to look at things. So thank you very much, Tara. Thank you to Shawn.

Tara Lordi   36:09

Thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate it. Thank you, it’s helpful to get the education.

Marco Ciappelli  36:16

It’s a pleasure, we love this story.

Show Intro  36:22

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