The jar on the left holds pure water, the brown liquid on the right is water with only 29 parts per million of iron, an extremely small percentage.

New Visions Water Treatment is there to take care of problems with the quality of water. Whether the job is commercial, residential, municipal or industrial in nature, the company is well-prepared to get it done.

R.W. "Skip" Inks, owner, said New Visions has service from its location on Highway 110 in Whitehouse all the way to Athens, Longview, Kilgore, Rusk and Mineola.

"If someone came in and said, `Hey, this is coming out of my faucet '," Skip said as he revealed a jar full of brown water, "we can fix it."

New Visions has its own product line of both point-of-use and point-of-entry filtration systems designed to remove any and all toxins and chemicals from water. One of its systems, the 5-Stage Reverse Osmosis Drinking Water System, removes up to 99 percent of impurities such as iron, lead, nitrate, magne- sium, copper, sodium, bacteria, viruses and more using only water pressure. This machine's technology was originally designed for naval submarines to make sea water drinkable, so it can take out pretty small stuff.

Above: One of New Visions' excellent systems, the 5-stage Reverse Osmosis System. Below: "Skip" and Merrilou Inks of New Visions Water Treatment in Whitehouse.

A lot of problems associated with private water wells are handled by the company.

Merrilou Inks said, "Not all well water comes out of the ground the way we want to use it. New Visions has equipment specially designed to take impurities, such as iron, from well water, or fix acidic water before it is sent to a home or business."

Skip said, "It's very satisfying work because you're helping people. Lots of women find this stuff coming out of their faucets and they're ready to move."

He added that low grades of arsenic can be found in water, which is now being linked to problems for type two diabetics.

"All the doctors around town seem to know there's bad water here," Skip said. "It is a serious problem here in East Texas because of all the drilling.

For those with apartments, New Visions can provide faucet filters good for up to 4,000 gallons of use before the filter needs changing.

Merrilou Inks said filters are important for those with babies as unfiltered water can be more harmful to weaker immune systems.

Even if contaminants like iron, lead and arsenic aren't present, the chlorine in water, while effective at killing germs, can be harmful as well.

The company has been in business since 1999. Before then, Skip Inks owned East Texas Water Treatment, and he has over 30 years of treatment experience.

It's a family owned and operated business, with four of its five employees in the Inks family.

Business hours are

from 8 am to 6 pm Monday through Friday, though the emergency service line (903-534-4855) is open 24/7.

"It's a pretty major problem to not have water at all," Merrilou said.

For a limited time, New Visions performs free water testing in its service range, so if that faucet or bath water is looking a little odd, give them a call and find out how to get fixed.