Following suit with Texas, California is in the process of finalizing its own legislation that will require companies to disclose a complete list of the chemicals used in fracturing operations.  Fracking continues to make headlines, and HTI doesn’t want to be left behind – a joint R&D project that the company is involved in just raised $1.3 million of funding to research the role of forward osmosis in the treatment and reuse of produced water.  Continue reading for more on these and other events in the water world:

M&A/ Partnerships

• International Power is preparing the sale of a 30% stake in the Hidd power and water plant, the 400,000m3/d & 910MW IWPP that provides some 75% of Bahrain’s water.  30% owner Sumitomo has first refusal to buy the stake, which it has confirmed it will be permitted to hold under Bahraini law.
  http://www.globalwaterintel.com/archive/12/8/need-to-know/hidd-and-seek.html

Projects

• Clean Water Services in Oregon will install the first Ostara Pearl® 2000 system (from Ostara Nutrient Recovery Technologies) at the Rock Creek Advanced Wastewater Treatment Facility in Hillsboro, OR.  The facility will install two reactors, with each reactor rated at 2,000 kg/day of production, and will have the capacity to produce 1,200 tons of fertilizer every year.
  http://www.waterworld.com/index/display/article-display.articles.waterworld.wastewater.2011.08.utility-plans-expansion-of-phosphorus-recovery-system.QP129867.dcmp=rss.page=1.html
•  A $1.7 million joint research and technology development project from Hydration Technology Innovations (HTI), Bear Creek Services and Colorado School of Mines using Forward Osmosis for the treatment and reuse of produced water and drilling wastewater was selected for $1.3 million of funding by RPSEA’s 2010 Unconventional Resources Program.
  http://eon.businesswire.com/news/eon/20110817006555/en/RPSEA-Awards/HTI/Hydration-Technology-Innovations

Innovation/ New Products

• Krohne has introduced the WATERFLUX 3070, a magnetic flowmeter with a Rilsan lined sensor tube, which has a 15 year battery life and no inlet and outlet piping requirements.  The flowmeter is for use at remote water sources or wells or for network data transfer.
  http://www.filtsep.com/view/20179/krohne-flowmeter-with-green-sensor-tube-lining/
• Emerson Process Management released the Rosemount® Analytical Model 56 dual-input analyzer, which features advanced control capabilities and a user-friendly interface to help control processes such as reverse osmosis in water treatment and desalination.  The Model 56 can also be used in power, pharmaceutical and food processing applications.
  http://www.desalination.biz/news/news_story.asp?id=6082&title=Liquid+analyser+has+advanced+control+capabilities

Emerson Process Management, Model 56

• IBM teamed with researchers at the University of Texas at Austin to apply advanced analytics to river systems, weather and sensor data, to predict the Guadalupe River’s behavior more than a hundred times the normal speed.  The new flood prediction technology can simulate tens of thousands of river branches at a time and could scale further to predict the behavior of millions of branches simultaneously.
  http://www.waterefficiency.net/the-latest/ibm-river-modeling.aspx

Other

• California fracking legislation, AB 591, appears poised for final passage.  The bill would require drillers of oil and gas wells to provide a complete list of the chemicals used in fracturing operations, as well as to report on the volume of water used in fracking, the volumes of contaminated water disposed of and the method of disposal.
  http://www.platts.com/RSSFeedDetailedNews/RSSFeed/NaturalGas/6385093