International Business Briefs: desalination, wastewater, audits, renewable energy, land reclamation and fuel cells

In this week’s International Business Briefs: new desalination projects in Jordan; a four-year contract for wastewater treatment in Arlington, Virginia; environmental audits for office equipment clients; green power accreditation in South Carolina; an award for successful land reclamation following 40 years of gypsum mining in Virginia; and a fuel cell contract for a Canadian company.

AquaTreat has won the contract to construct a desalination plant at Abu Zeighan Wells. The new plant will have a total capacity of 60,000 cubic metres of water per day, and will treat brackish water at a concentration of 7,000 parts per million to under 500 parts per million. The water will supply the capital, Amman, and the project is due to be ready to start up in February 2003.

Earth Tech, a unit of Tyco Engineered Products and Services, has won a four-year contract by the Arlington County Water Pollution Control Division in Virginia to provide programme management for the county’s water pollution control plant upgrade and expansion. The contract is valued at US$11 million, and work has already begun.

Office Depot Inc in New York state, US, has announced the formation of a business relationship with GreenOrder, an environmental consulting firm, to provide value-added services to the company’s business services group customers. Customers will be offered sustainability audits, to be performed by GreenOrder, to assess their procurement practices and to identify opportunities to purchase environmentally preferable paper and other products.

The Center for Resource Solutions (CRS) in San Francisco, California, has announced that Santee Cooper, South Carolina’s state-owned electric and water utility, has achieved National Green Power Accreditation for its green power programme. Santee Cooper’s Green Power is generated from methane gas at a landfill, and meets the national and state accreditation standards for environmental and consumer protection.

The United States Gypsum Company has won a 2002 Virginia mining reclamation award for successfully returning the site of the company’s Locust Cove underground mine near Rich Valley, Smyth county, Virginia, to its original state. The Locust Cove site where the company mined gypsum for almost 40 years today consists of hills and meadows inhabited by deer, turkey and other wildlife.

Fuel cell company Ballard Power Systems in Canada has signed a supply agreement with Honda Motor Co of Tokyo, Japan. Ballard will supply Honda with up to 32 Mark 902 fuel cell modules through 2005 and support services for Honda’s fuel cell vehicle customer deliveries in the US and Japan.