PRINEVILLE — Whether for a backyard koi pond or a small lake to capture contaminated water at an oil-drilling site, BTL Liners makes something to fit the order.

The company has sent custom-made products to the North Slope of Alaska, the sands of Kuwait and the tropics of Nicaragua. It’s also lined backyard ponds and golf course lakes in Central Oregon, lined an irrigation pond in California and built inflatable greenhouses in Maine and Michigan.

The company, founded by Brad and Janice Elliott as Bend Tarp and Liner Inc., has grown in 34 years from a 5,000-square-foot home in its namesake city to an 85,000-square-foot facility built to suit in Prineville. Along the way, the company name was changed to BTL Liners Inc.

Its customers now include food-processing plants, hydroponic growers, wineries, mining companies, oil companies, trucking companies, irrigation districts and dairy farmers. The company also developed new applications for reinforced polyethylene, the basic material from which pond liners are made.

“It’s a very niche industry; there’s a small amount of companies that do what we do across the country,” said Jared Santoro, BTL vice president and general manager. “We’re the only place in Oregon that does anything like this, on this scale. And, I’d say, really only a half a dozen or so companies are out there that have the capabilities that we have.”

As if to demonstrate the point, six BTL employees moved soundlessly across the expansive floor, pulling polyethylene from large rolls, measuring, aligning and cutting them in a choreographed routine. In minutes, they created a 1,000-square-foot pond liner.

“Obviously, we have quite an investment in a fabricating facility,” said Michael Baron, company president. For larger jobs, panels are made in Prineville and welded together on the job site to create even larger panels.

BTL has the capacity to turn 600,000 square feet of polyethylene into finished products worth as much as $250,000 every day, Santoro said. The variety of things BTL makes is mind-boggling. Got a small fishing boat? It makes a tarp to cover that. A small cistern that leaks? It will craft a liner.

From made-to-order, extra-tough polyethylene, the company created a blast curtain for mining companies to shield their equipment. BTL also makes oil-containment booms in 100-foot sections, the type used at oil spills.

During the recession, BTL experienced a growth spurt as a new method of drilling, hydraulic fracturing, became popular, Santoro said. BTL makes pad liners for drill sites that keep contaminated water and other material from seeping into the ground. When the drilling is done, the liner is recycled into parking bumpers and railroad ties.

With gas and oil prices low, drilling has fallen, but BTL found opportunity in the drought-stricken West.

“California just enacted a law that all the drinking water reservoirs have to be covered to eliminate evaporation, or at least reduce evaporation,” Baron said. “So that’s an emerging market.”

— Reporter: 541-617-7815, jditzler@bendbulletin.com

Q: What’s the life span for a pond liner?

A: Jared Santoro: There’s a wide array. We have liners that have just a two-year warranty — they’re exposed to the sun. (Ultraviolet light) is going to be the most damaging thing over time, or chemicals. Most common pond liner products have 20-year warranties, assuming the pond is kept full.

Q: Given the ongoing drought, are there products that look promising?

A: Santoro: We do floating covers (for drinking-water reservoirs). There’s a liner to hold the water … and you have a trench around the perimeter where the liner goes in. The cover goes on top of the liner, and then it’s tied into the same trench. As the pond fills, the cover stays on top and prevents evaporation, but the liquid stays in the middle. We’ve done dozens of them.