WS Packaging Group Inc., of Algoma, Wisc., has been awarded the 2004 Environmental & Recycling Award by the Tag and Label Manufacturers Institute. ?
The International Ultraviolet Association unveiled its new website, www.iuva.org. The site features both public and member pages, as well as a special section for board members to host online meetings. The IUVA has increased its annual subscription rates to $80 for individual members, with similar increases for small, medium and large organizational members such as consultants and manufacturers. ?
BASF Corporation has donated a patent for wastewater treatment technology, the Continuous Flow Completely Mixed Wastewater Treatment Method, to the Water Environment Research Foundation. ?
The National Ground Water Association has signed a new agreement with Blackwell Publishing to distribute its periodicals, Ground Water and Ground Water Monitoring and Remediation. ?
The American Water Works Association standard for hypochlorites has been revised to include new language about bromate in sodium hypochlorite, as well as a revision to the language on the calculation of available chlorine and the weight percentage of sodium hypochlorite. ?
Koch Membrane Systems is constructing a 10.6 mgd-capacity water treatment facility in Robstown, Texas. At the heart of the new treatment plant are KMS ultrafiltration membranes. ?
WILO AG of Germany and USFilter Corporation of Warrendale, Pa., have jointly announced the termination of their agreement to market WILO’s EMU line of pumps and mixers in North America through USFilter sales channels. ?
Ionics Incorporated has been awarded a $7.5 million contract by Deer Creek Energy Limited of Calgary to supply two RCC® Brine Contractors in the region for converting two waste streams into high quality boiler feed water. They also unveiled a new website, www.ionics.com, in January, featuring expanded information about the company’s line of systems and services for water treatment purification, wastewater treatment and water analysis. ?
Nelson Corporation celebrated its 50th anniversary with a year-long sweepstakes to win a 2005 Ford F-150 truck. It was won by Jerry Anderson, the owner/operator of Tri-County Water Conditioning in Kendallville, Ind. ?
JMAR Technologies Inc., has extended the closing of its agreement to purchase assets of The LXT Group and has finalized two license agreements that collectively serve to secure and enhance available equipment for its real-time, online system for monitoring water supplies. ?
Winnipeg, Manitoba and Calgary have selected ultraviolet disinfection equipment from Trojan Technologies to treat the cities’ wastewater before being released into nearby rivers and lakes. ?
Taylor Technologies Inc. debuted its new website, www.taylortechnologies.com, attracting potential customers with a new look and expanded content. The average stay at the site is nearly nine minutes, the company reports. ?
The National Swimming Pool Foundation has relocated to new offices at 4775 Granby Circle, Colorado Springs, Colo. 80919-3131. The move coincided with group’s 40th anniversary. ?
Pepsi/Coke pushing flavored water
Coca-Cola Co., PepsiCo Inc. and Nestlé will each roll out new flavored water products in the first quarter of 2005, hoping to capitalize on a growing subsector of the $11 billion U.S. bottled water market. Coke is expected to unveil lemon and raspberry versions of Dasani in February. Pepsi will launch Aquafina FlavorSplash in raspberry, wild berry and citrus flavors by mid-March. Nestlé has expressed plans for a variety of Nestlé Pure Life Splash flavors in early spring.
Unattended water safety
Sandia National Laboratories, CH2M Hill and Tenix Investments Pty., Ltd., have announced a multi-year, multi-million dollar partnership to develop an unattended water safety system that offers the unique capability of detecting currently unmonitored biological agents such as bacteria, viruses and protozoa that could threaten water supplies. Current real-time, remote water quality monitoring is limited to detecting more traditional water-quality parameters, such as turbidity or the presence of dissolved solids, pH, nitrates and ammonia.
Cataracts and lead linkage
Researchers at the Bingham and Woman’s Hospital in Boston, Mass., have pointed to a link between lifetime exposure to lead from drinking water pipes and paint in older homes and an apparent increase in men’s risk of cataract development. Published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the study looked at data from 795 U.S. men, age 60 and older, to determine bone lead levels and propensity for cataracts. The study did not observe female subjects and did not speculate whether the findings apply to women.
United States
LV reaches water deal
The Southern Nevada Water Authority in Las Vegas has reached a $330 million water allotment deal with Central Arizona Project to provide Colorado River water to the growing city for the next 15 years. The plan calls for Arizona to guarantee 1.25 million acre-feet of water annually to Nevada each contract year and would let the water authority draw as much as 20,000 more acre-feet each year from Lake Mead beginning in 2007.
WERF releases research funding
The Water Environment Research Foundation is issuing 12 requests for proposals totaling more than $2 million in funding for water quality research. The research will target diverse areas from prevention and minimization of odors and related corrosion in collection systems to factors for success in developing use attainability analyses. Detailed RFPs for each project can be downloaded at www.werf.org
GEO out of Chapter 11
GEO Specialty Chemicals Inc. and its subsidiary, GEO Specialty Chemicals Limited, has emerged from bankruptcy nine months after filing. Through its reorganization, GEO has discharged over $135 million of unsecured obligations and cancelled its prepetition common shares and warrants. Pursuant to the reorganization plan, GEO will also make cash distributions of about $4.3 million to general unsecured creditors and certain key continuing vendors.
Calgon amends shareholder plan
Calgon Carbon Corporation’s board of directors has amended the company’s Shareholder’s Rights Plan to reduce the triggering threshold under the plan to 10 percent from its previous level of 20 percent. As a result, the rights will be triggered if a person or group acquires beneficial ownership of 10 percent or more of the company’s common shares. The motivation for the amendment was not disclosed.
USFilter’s new underdrain design
USFilter Corporation has re-engineered its Multicrete II™ filter underdrain system used in water and wastewater filters to simplify the installation process and improve overall strength. The NSF Standard 61-approved system can weather high upward and downward pressure with an increased allowable floor thickness and features a unique fastening system developed to allow a simple one-quarter turn to secure the inserts in place.
Palm Beach adds fluoride
Utilities in Palm Beach County are now adding fluoride to the water they serve to 450,000 customers—roughly half the population of the county. County commissioners gave final approval for the project in early January after years of debate regarding the impact fluoride would have on the community. The newly fluorided communities include Boca Raton, Delray Beach and Boyton Beach. People obtaining water from Palm Beach County’s municipal water systems already get fluoride.
PureTex water plant
American PureTex Water Corp. has announced plans to build the world’s largest bottled water plant in south central Texas. Operation of the plant, which is expected to create about 380 jobs in the area, will begin in the first quarter of 2006 and produce at an estimated capacity of 150 million cases of one-half liter bottles of water per year. PureTex water said it has already attracted interest from major bottled water OEM distributors for the project.
Clustered water market grows
More than 30 companies are now marketing clustered or oxygenated waters and sales across North America and the rest of the world are growing at more than 25 percent each year, Zenith International reports. While remaining well below two percent of total bottled water volume in any individual country, combined sales did pass the 100 million liter mark in 2004. North America accounted for 48 percent of that growth, but western Europe has been responsible for 71 percent of the overall growth since 2002. Zenith estimates the market will double again by 2008.
Mazzei merges with GDT
Mazzei Injector Corporation announces its merger of GDT Water Process Corporation of Phoenix, Ariz. GDT, which will become a division of Mazzei, is a water treatment equipment company specializing in ozone treatment and VOC tripping applications. “We anticipate our new concentration of technologies, expertise, vision, marketing and distribution will create an even more productive force with increased internal efficiencies,” Mazzei president Angelo Mazzei said. The financial details of the merger were not disclosed.
EPA updates aircraft water study
The second round of EPA testing shows that 17.2 percent of 169 randomly selected passenger aircraft carried water contaminated with total coliform bacteria. The tests were conducted on domestic and international aircraft at airports nationwide in November and December 2004. Passengers with compromised immune systems are urged to request canned or bottled beverages and refrain from drinking tea or coffee during their flights. The EPA is continuing their priority review of safe drinking water guidance for airlines and expected to make more detailed recommendations in the coming year.
Identifying and eliminating anthrax
Water Consultants and Laboratories, of Tempe, Ariz., has developed a new system and series of techniques for water reuse and reclamation for nonpotable uses, including a one-of-a-kind system that eliminates anthrax and 30 other types of deadly bacteria from water supplies. A similar system developed by WCL has been utilized by Phoenix-area purified water bottling companies to detect any potential bio-threats in their water systems post-purification prior to bottling.
Associations to merge
The Open Modular Architecture Controls Users’ Group and the Instrumentation, Systems and Automation Society have announced their intention to combine missions to aid industry in the successful development and application of automation technologies. The merger will allow both organizations to build on their respective strengths and while the final stages of the plan are still being coordinated, the resulting group will have OMAC functioning as a subsidiary of ISA.
Europe
French tap water ads
The French government has launched an ad campaign to convince four million people living in and around Paris to give up bottled water and drink from the tap. The poster campaign features bottles resembling known brands and the slogan, “You’re free to pay 100 times more,” for water. In France, bottled water consumption has doubled in the past 20 years and is increasingly a target of activists who argue that the 20,000 tons of plastic used each year for bottling is unnecessarily expensive and hazardous to the environment.
Severn Trent Services to distribute Lanxess
Severn Trent Services has signed an agreement with Lanxess Deutschland GmbH, a chemicals business spun off from Bayer AG, to be the exclusive worldwide distributor of their arsenic and heavy metals removal technology for wastewater applications. Severn Trent already has the exclusive global rights to provide Lanxess’s Bayoxide E33 media for drinking water applications.
Middle East
Contaminated water in Iraq
The United Nations is warning that unclean water may lead to more deaths of Iraqi people than any other cause as a result of the United States’ War on Terrorism in the country. Citing the city of Basra as an example, where damage to the electric power grid shut down the water treatment plant more than two years ago and most of the 1.5 million residents have no access to safe water for at least four days a week, the UN is continuing to call for greater protection of the nation’s water resources and expanded access to clean water for the Iraqi people.
Fake bottled water warning
Public health officials from Ras Al Khaimah, United Arab Emirates, are warning residents that a brand of bottled water being sold with claims of holy curative properties, was bottled and packaged locally. The water claims to be from Zam Zam, the holy well of Makkah in Saudi Arabia and has been taken by faithfuls as a cure for many diseases. However, the water is not imported and according to the General Secretariat of Municipalities is, “unfit for human consumption.”
Asia
Desal plant in Chennai
The India government in the Tamil Nadu region has developed a task force to examine the feasibility of constructing a desalination plant in the area. The need for water has arisen from rapid expansion of the textile trade in the region, spurring population growth and a drain on local resources.
Veolia water center opens in Shanghai
Veolia Water is forecasting 20 percent growth annually for their water operations in China, accounting for 10 percent of their global business by 2020. The announcement comes on the heels of the opening of the Shanghai Pudong Veolia Water Centre in January, a 50-50 joint venture with Pudong Tap Water Company to provide water quality control, water flow management and 24-hour customer service to the city, a $700 million project that began in 2002.
Australia
Clay-based water purifier
Researchers at the Australian National University have developed a revolutionary water purification system that uses a filter made of clay and other organic materials such as rice husks and coffee grounds. According to ANU scientist Tony Flynn, the filter can remove up to 98 percent of E. coli bacteria from drinking water and shows enormous potential for use in developing countries where typical filtration systems are too costly for widespread use.