The big news story this week is definitely today’s announcement that Ecolab is set to purchase Nalco Holding. The deal, priced at over $5 billion, will help Ecolab to bolster its presence in the oil drilling residual water treatment market. For more on this story, and other exciting news throughout the water world, continue reading below:

M&A/ Partnerships

• Ecolab is near a deal to buy Nalco Holding, the water treatment company, for about $5 billion, which puts an enterprise value on the deal of close to $8 billion (including assumption of long-term debt).
  http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/07/19/ecolab-to-buy-nalco-a-tk-for-5-billion/

• ITT Corporation’s water technology and services business will be called Xylem. The standalone company will consist of the Water & Wastewater (including wastewater transport; biological, filtration and disinfection treatment and analytics), Residential & Commercial Water and Flow Control businesses.
  http://www.waterworld.com/index/display/article-display.articles.waterworld.drinking-water.2011.07.Introducing-Xylem.QP129867.dcmp=rss.page=1.html

• Parkson Corporation, through exclusive distribution rights for Biowater Technologies‘ existing and future fixed-film technologies, will expand its portfolio of biological wastewater treatment solutions in North America.
  http://www.waterworld.com/index/display/article-display.articles.waterworld.wastewater.treatment.2011.07.Biological-wastewater-treatment-Parkson.QP129867.dcmp=rss.page=1.html

Projects

• ACCIONA Agua has been awarded a €17.4 million (between construction and operation) build-design-operate-maintain contract for the Escalerilla Wastewater Treatment Plant in Arequipa, Peru. ACCIONA Agua expects to have the necessary infrastructure built in the space of 22 months and will take care of O&M for a period of three years.
  http://www.acciona.com/news/acciona-agua-wins-arequipa-(peru)-wwtp-contract

• Pacific Water Treatment Engineering Co. selected Koch Membrane Systems to provide PURON® membrane modules for a new city wastewater treatment facility in Zhangjiagang, China scheduled for start-up in early 2012. The system is designed to handle an annual average flow of 25,000 m3/d, with peaks of up to 36,000 m3/d.
  http://www.kochmembranesystems.com/pdf/Press_Releases/PURON%20MBR%20Shanghai%20-Final.pdf

PURON MBR

• Cityworks, a provider of GIS-centric management solutions based exclusively on ESRI technology, announced MittSverige Vatten, a Swedish water utility, has implemented their Server AMS to assist in asset management needs.
  http://www.waterefficiency.net/the-latest/swedish-cityworks-ams.aspx

• Pure Technologies Ltd. has been awarded a contract extension worth approximately $4 million to supply monitoring and technical support to the San Diego County Water Authority (SDCWA). Pure was initially retained by the SDCWA in 2005 to install a temporary acoustic monitoring system in sections of the Water Authority’s prestressed concrete cylinder pipe.
  http://www.waterefficiency.net/the-latest/pure-technologies-sdcwa.aspx

• Samsung Engineering, Invest AD and United Utilities signed a debt package that includes an $83 million tranche for their Muharraq wastewater project in Bahrain. The 29-year concession project marks the first sewage treatment plant project offered for tender to the private sector in Bahrain.
  http://www.shearman.com/Shearman–Sterling-Advises-Lenders-on-Muharraq-Wastewater-Project-in-Bahrain-07-20-2011/

• South East Water, one of Melbourne’s three state-owned metropolitan water retailers, has awarded Innovyze a substantial contract for its premier InfoWorks WS water modelling software to replace the utility’s existing solution. The utility is already using Innovyze InfoWorks CS for its wastewater modelling needs.
  http://www.waterlink-international.com/news/id2016-Geospatial_Hydraulic_Modelling_for_SE_Water.html

Innovation/ New Products

• The Water Canary, a new fast, networked, water-testing device to test untreated or inadequately treated water for micro-biological and chemical contaminations, was unveiled at the TED Global conference in Edinburgh. The device, which uses patented spectral technology, is capable of transmitting its GPS­tagged data across any available wired or wireless network, while companion software distributes the data widely in multiple formats to provide a geographically relevant and actionable visual analysis.
  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14129592 and http://www.waterlink-international.com/news/id2007-Geotagged_Accessible_Water_Tester.html

Water Canary

• Natural Environmental Systems released NE2000 Wastewater Treatment, a new and improved wastewater treatment bacteria product for faster reduction of organic waste, lower BOD/COD levels and overall improved system efficiency across multiple wastewater types. The new formula is twice the strength of its predecessors, with an industry leading 10 billion CFU/ gram concentration level.
  http://news.yahoo.com/natural-environmental-systems-llc-announces-improved-wastewater-treatment-100018300.html

• Researchers from Bangor University and Trinity College Dublin have been granted £500,000 to investigate and develop small hydropower turbines that use water pressure within the water storage system to generate renewable energy. The water treatment systems that introduce these turbines can use the energy and sell it to the grid, thereby reducing CO2 emissions and operating costs of supplying treated water.
  http://www.waterlink-international.com/news/id2011-HydroBPT_Energy_Generation.html

Other

• Texas became the first state to require energy companies to disclose chemicals used in the hydraulic fracturing process when it signed energy legislation on the matter last week. New York and Pennsylvania have also imposed restrictions on hydraulic fracturing due to environmental concerns, although New York is considering allowing drilling to resume.
  http://www.waterlink-international.com/news/id2013-Texas_Enforces_Fracking_Rules.html

• The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has created a $17 million partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to identify, test, and help scale evidence-based approaches for cost-effective and sustained services in the water, sanitation, and hygiene sectors in developing countries. The partnership will support innovators by creating partnerships, providing staged financing, rigorously testing and refining new approaches, and transitioning to scale successful innovations.
  http://www.waterefficiency.net/the-latest/usaid-gates-solutions.aspx