Business Briefs: hybrid vehicles, vulnerability assessments and water treatment services

Japanese car manufacturer, Toyota has just passed the 100,000 mark in cumulative sales of hybrid vehicles, which combine conventional engines and electric power. Toyota, the industry leader in this field, aims to be producing 300,000 hybrid vehicles per annum by around

2005.

With the help of the state, 39 Rhode Island communities have strengthened their resilience to natural coastal disasters such as hurricanes and floods. Rhode Island Emergency Management and the private firm Odeh Engineers, Inc. conducted vulnerability assessments for each community and produced Hazard Mitigation Strategies. In 1999, Rhodes Island won the Project Impact Outstanding State Award, presented by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, for its efforts to help communities become disaster resistant.

Global Water Technologies, Inc., a water technology and services company, has announced that its subsidiary, Applied Water Technologies, Inc. has received a contract from Way Services, Ltd. to provide its proprietary AquaPhysics cooling water treatment technologies and services

through Way Service for the Schlumberger Training Center located in Sugar Land, Texas.

Environment and redevelopment firm, Weston Solutions, Inc. is providing Vulnerability Assessment, Security and Operational Enhancement services for public water systems in the US. In response to a US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) mandate, Weston will conduct a vulnerability assessment of the US drinking water supply facilities, as is required

so that these water utilities can receive EPA Security planning Grants.