“Whatever you believe and whatever god you pray to, a place where clean water rises from the earth is in some way sacred.”
– Charles Frazier, Thirteen Moons
Preserving water resources is the mission of current MBA student and entrepreneur Pam Neronha. She is the Founder/CEO of Pluvion, a California Benefit Corporation with plans to disrupt the municipal water treatment system by allowing customers to control and customize the quantity and quality of their household water supply by augmenting it with rainwater and adding secondary treatment.
Water awareness
In 1995, Pam was living in Palo Alto and working as a buyer for a bookstore in San Jose. Following an opportunity to own a small business, she traveled to Mount Shasta. The business didn’t work out, but the trip changed her life. Inspired by the beauty of Shasta Lake and the snowy peak of Mount Shasta, she moved north. Becoming an avid sportswoman, her connection to the pristine wilderness deepened.
She enrolled in a certificate program in water and wastewater treatment at Shasta College in Redding, which led her on a very successful career working for local government. In 2006 she was the first woman in its fifty-year history to win the William Hatfield Award from the Water Environment Federation and the California Water Environment Association. Pam also earned her MPA at California State University, Stanislaus in 2013.
Through her work and studies, Pam realized clean, abundant water is taken for granted in the United States. Increasing numbers of communities areas are facing aging infrastructure, source contamination, and drought. It was time to get “smart” about water.
“When it rains, we store.”
Pluvion’s point-of-entry system captures rain in large stainless steel tanks. It then treats the rain, municipal, or well water supply. Treatment exceeds federal and state-mandated drinking water standards, removing endocrine disruptors, pharmaceutical byproducts, PFAs, and micro-plastics. Government agencies are not mandated to test for these contaminants and do not have the technology to remove them. Pluvion fills the gap.
Pluvion’s technology is the smart home application for water. The “smart sense” technology allows for sophisticated monitoring that can be accessed remotely by your smartphone. For customers living in the wildland-urban interface, Pluvion’s system has an apparatus that can be deployed in the event of a wildfire to help protect property.
Passion and determination
Pluvion exists to solve a wicked problem: the increasingly unpredictable nature of consumer household drinking water. There are social, economic benefits, environmental, and associated with Pluvion’s system, including improved health and well-being, lower costs for municipally-supplied water, greater resiliency, and for some, protection of life and property during a fire. A service plan is part of the lease-only business model to ensure cradle to cradle disposal of filters and other waste to minimize environmental impact.
Pam is passionate and determined to help preserve and extend our clean water supplies. Pam likes to say that she found two great loves in her life: water and Mount Shasta. They are her motivation to succeed.
Working on a start-up and pursuing an MBA keep Pam busy. She keeps herself balanced by continuing to train for long-distance marathons. Pam is trying to qualify for her 6th Boston Marathon in either 2020 or 2021; she has raced the event five times already. Training keeps her body thinking it is not as old as it is, keeps her brain sharp, and manages the extraordinary stress that comes with being an entrepreneur and a student.
Drip. Drip. Drip. Soon you too could have a barrel full of clean household water.
