Former health minister Nelson Bascome has introduced a rooftop water filter to the local market that he says can offer filtration before water enters the tank.

The Honae 3 Way Water Filter is the brainchild of Robert Smith. Several years ago when cleaning a roof on a rainy day he noticed an assortment of items entering the gutter. It prompted him to invent a system that would prohibit pollutants entering the tank system.

After years of building prototypes, Mr. Bascome arranged to have it manufactured by Hi Tech Engineers in Korea. That company claims the system can strain up to 0.03 microns of pollutants.

?The basic concept of the Honae Rooftop Filter is to stop the amount of particles that enter into the tank and eventually the house water system. This product ensures clean water is drained into the tank,? Mr. Bascome said.

The water filter features three stages. A first filter stops larger leaves and twigs from entering the tank or blocking the gutters while a second filter stops smaller leaves and debris.

A third filter at the bottom stops fine particles and soluble pollutants that may strain through the first two sections.

?It looks simple, it is simple but it is only that way because you have seen it. If you had to think it up from scratch it is not,? Mr. Smith said.?

The white plastic Honae filter is just slightly bigger the a can of Coke. The cost is $46 per unit. There is an average fee of $20 although the company says it is simple enough for do-it-yourselfers to install into standard three inch pipe themselves.

The third filter needs to be changed as often as three months in residential areas that are exposed to a lot of sand and dust. These cost $5 apiece.

Mr. Bascome said the Honae is only the ?first line of defence? against pollutants and he would still recommend homeowners use filters inside their homes as well. The company has patented the product here and also plan to market the it overseas, most particularly in Sicily which has homes with similar tank systems as Bermuda.

The launch of the filter follows closely on the release of a report last month that revealed water quality in house tanks was poor, due to high levels of E. Coli bacteria entering the tanks from animal faeces.

Atlantis Mobile Laboratory sampled 70 tanks across the island for the study which was conducted just two months after Hurricane Fabian struck in September 2003.

The head of the BioStation cautioned that it was ?important to realise this was a short term study?, however at the time, the visiting scientists behind the study said that conventional cleaning methods like chlorinating, roof cleaning and filtration did not work and new methods needed to be tested to free water tanks of germs.

The only efficient method they said that was found to be efficient was the frequent emptying and cleaning of tanks.