AMERICAS
Field Notes
USA: U.S. Trade & Development Agency director Larry Walther signed two bilateral agreements in China to promote improved energy efficiency and water quality, one that funds a public-private partnership to sponsor “at least 12 technical seminars/workshops on topics such as pollution monitoring and control, policy mechanisms, and best practices in improving water quality” with assistance from the Water & Wastewater Equipment Manufacturers Association, Water Environment Federation and WateReuse Association. These would be driven by U.S. companies partnering to share technological expertise to help solve related problems identified under the U.S.-China Strategic Economic Dialogue’s 10-Year Framework on Energy and Environment.
BRAZIL: Amitech, Brazil’s largest FRP pipe manufacturer has a new CEO. A civil engineer with an MBA in marketing, Gonzalo Arias, 41, took command of the Brazilian operation after working 14 years for Grupo Mundial, a Colombian conglomerate that acquired 70% of Amitech in 2007, creating O-tek — the remaining 30% belonging to Saudi Amiantit. Arias wants to diversify the portfolio supported by Amitech, currently comprising basic sanitation, irrigation and energy generation segments.
USA: Monsanto is partnering with multiple agricultural and conservation groups in a new initiative to work with farmers as well as homeowners to help reduce nutrient and sediment runoff from the Mississippi River into the Gulf of Mexico. The effort includes the Nature Conservancy, Iowa Soybean Association, Delta Wildlife and National Audubon Society.
USA: Gresham, Oregon, and Veolia Water North America as well as Indianapolis, Indiana, and Veolia unit United Water were both recipients of National Council for Public-Private Partnerships awards. The Oregon honor involves the 2008 Public-Private Partnership Award for results of a seven-year, $21 million contract in which Veolia manages all O&M services for Gresham’s 20-mgd WWTP, biosolids, industrial pretreatment, cogeneration, lab services and nine lift stations. The Indiana honor, which involves improved efficiencies resulting in $250 million in savings since 1994, garnered the NCPPP Service Recognition Award as well as 25 Peak Performance awards from the National Association of Clean Water Agencies. In other news, Arvin, California, expanded its wastewater partnership with Veolia Water to include its sewer collection system.
USA: Flowserve opened its newest Quick Response Center (QRC) in Bangalore, India. Located at the pump and flow control specialist’s existing Bangalore facility, the 4,000 sq. ft. QRC will manufacture and service Limitorque actuators for the petrochemical and power industry.
USA: Koch Membrane Systems will provide membrane modules for an MBR for Joe White Maltings of Ballarat, Australia. The project, which was awarded to Tenix Alliance Pty. Ltd., is the second Joe White Maltings wastewater treatment system to use PURON™ MBR submerged membranes. They’ll be used to treat wastewater generated in “steeping” barley to convert it to beer malt.
ERI saves energy for global desalination operations
Recent winner of top honors for innovation at the 2008 Pump Industry Awards, California’s Energy Recovery Inc. won a large-scale energy recovery contract for seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) desalination in Algeria. In Tipasa near the city of El Jazair on its northern coast, the Fouka 120,000-m3/day SWRO project is scheduled for startup in 2010. It’s being developed by Acciona Agua of Spain and Canada’s SNC Lavalin in a 25-year BOO contract. The 138 ERI PX-220 energy recovery devices should save nearly 13 MW of energy or over 113,000 mWh per year.
Separately, Acciona Agua — as part of a consortium with Aqualia and FCC — also picked ERI’s PX technology to upgrade the Tordera desalination plant near Barcelona and double production capacity to 55,000 m3/d of fresh water. This involves new high pressure pumps and 60 PX-260 devices to cut energy use by over 2 million kWh/year or 16%.
In Algeria, ERI won another contract for the Souk Tleta 200,000-m3/day SWRO plant in Tlemcen, which will provide water for the Algerian Energy Co., the country’s state-owned national water entity. Slated for startup in 2010, it’s being built by Singapore’s Hyflux on a 25-year BOOT basis. ERI will supply 260 PX-220 energy recovery devices to save about 21 MW of energy.
Aquatech puts emphasis on zero liquid discharge
Canonsburg, Pennsylvania’s Aquatech International won a second order in Madgascar from SNC-Lavalin as agent for the Ambatovy Minerals SA and Dynatec Madagascar SA nickel-cobalt mining and processing project to supply a SprayFilm Evaporator that will concentrate a nickel sulphate-bearing process stream.
An Aquatech-led consortium, with Carlo Gavazzi Impianti Spa under the name Zenit S.c.ar.l., also commissioned zero liquid discharge (ZLD) facilities at four of ENEL’s coal-fired power plants in Italy. Feed for the plants is FGD wastewater. Aquatech’s integrated solution included a combination of physical/chemical, evaporation and crystallization technologies that enabled ENEL to achieve ZLD and environmental compliance.
Lastly, the company received a ZLD order from Gemma Power Systems for the 640-MW combined cycle Colusa Power Station, in Maxwell, California, owned by PG&E. It will design, manufacture and supply potable UF, wastewater UF, RO and a wastewater forced circulation crystallizer to generate 300 gpm of treated process water from surface water canal feed and treat 500 gpm of wastewater to achieve ZLD.
Emerson picked in Romania, HART award goes to Venezuelan client
Romania’s Complexul Energetic Rovinari picked Emerson Process Management to apply its Plantweb® digital plant architecture to Unit 6 of its Rovinari coal-fired power plant to meet stricter EU environmental rules. As well as steam and boiler operation, Emerson’s Ovation system will control FGD as well as slug and slurry processes under two separately awarded contracts. Also included are its AMS Suite predictive maintenance software, Rosemount instrumentation and SmartProcess optimization technologies.
In other news:
- Process control and industrial technical services consultant Bay-Tec Engineering of Napa, California, became part of Emerson Process Management after being acquired by Emerson.
- Its Smart Wireless technology also proved cost-effective for continuous performance data on boiler feed pumps at Montour power station in Pennsylvania as well as feed water and air heaters at the Brunner Island Unit 1 of PPL Corp.
- The HART Communication Foundation presented its 2008 HART Plant of the Year Award to the PDVSA Petropiar oil refinery, a user of Emerson technologies, in Mejorador Jose, Barcelona, Venezuela.
- Emerson’s Smart Wireless technology is helping provide condition monitoring information for boiler and steam cracker systems at the TOTAL Petrochemicals plant in Carling Saint Avold, France.
In November, the company opened its Mizushima Solutions Center in Okayama, Japan, and Asia Flow Tech-nology Center in Nanjing, China. And it won a contract to automate the Phi-ladelphia Water Department’s 200-mgd Baxter Water Treatment Plant. Fluor Corp. also named it a preferred supplier.
Insituform re-organizes, settles lawsuit, wins contracts
Through a Canadian subsidiary, the company won a $4.4 million contract from Victoria, British Columbia, to use its PuraGuard polyethylene water pipe renewal technology to rehabilitate 14,750 feet of high-pressure steel pipes of 8” to 24” in diameter.
It also settled a lawsuit pending against Per Aarsleff A/S, a joint venture partner in Germany and the United Kingdom and a former licensee of the Insituform® cured-in-place pipe (CIPP) process in Europe, Russia and South Africa, for $8.5 million.
And Insituform won a $10.3 million sewer contract in November from Metropolitan Development Commission to rehabilitate 270,000 linear feet of sewer lines, servicing eight Connecticut municipalities in the Hartford region.
B&V takes cheese
A replacement raw water treatment works which Overland, Kansas, USA engineering firm Black & Veatch helped design, won a UK Civil Engineering Environmental Quality (CEEQUAL) Award. Completed with Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies and Costain, for client Bristol Water, the Axbridge, England project treats raw river water pumped from the River Axe and discharged into the Cheddar Reservoir.