Containment

The deadline to submit presentation abstracts to Sally Humphreys (sh@amiplastics.com) for Waterproof Membranes 2010 is: 28 May 2010. The conference is Applied Market Information's (AMI) 4th international conference on Waterproof Membranes and will be held 30 November - 2 December 2010 at the Maritim Hotel in Cologne, Germany. A welcome reception and registration will be held on the first evening, and the two-day technical program follows. Learn more.

Qatar Petroleum (QP) on behalf of the Government of the State of Qatar has signed today a new Exploration and Production Sharing Agreement (EPSA) with Shell and PetroChina Company Limited (PetroChina) for Qatar Block D. The agreement was signed in Doha by His Excellency Abdulla bin Hamad Al-Attiyah, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Energy and Industry, Peter Voser, Chief Executive Officer of Royal Dutch Shell plc, and Mr. Zhao Dong, Chief Financial Officer of PetroChina International Investment Company Limited.

The performance of a three million pound ($NZ6.2m) New Zealand-built artificial surf reef at a British tourist beach has been sub-standard, according to Bournemouth Borough Council. Experts at Plymouth University assessed the quality of waves enhanced by the underwater creation over six months, and found the reef achieved only four of its 11 objectives. The installation uses 55 sand-filled "geotextile bags" placed 225m out to sea. The criticism conflicts with some early reports from lifeguards about the waves being dangerous. Learn more here.;

TenCate Geosynthetics has published a glossary of common geosynthetics terms and definitions on its website. Learn more here.;

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is releasing action plans developed by 16 electric utility facilities with coal ash impoundments, describing the measures the facilities are taking to make their impoundments safer. The action plans are a response to EPA's final assessment reports on the structural integrity of these impoundments that the agency made public this February. Coal ash was brought prominently to national attention in 2008 when an impoundment holding disposed ash waste generated by the Tennessee Valley Authority broke open, creating a massive spill in Kingston, Tennessee, that covered millions of cubic yards of land and river and is regarded as one of the worst environmental disasters of its kind in history. Shortly afterwards, EPA began overseeing the cleanup, as well as investigating the structural integrity of impoundments where ash waste is stored.

Chairman Boxer, Ranking Member Inhofe, and members of the Committee, thank you for inviting me to testify about EPA's role in responding to the BP Deepwater Horizon rig explosion. As we all know, efforts by BP to stop the oil release continue. While there is no perfect solution to the environmental disaster that the Gulf of Mexico is facing right now, EPA is committed to protecting our communities, the natural environment and human health. That commitment covers both the risks from the spill itself, as well as any concerns resulting from the response to the spill.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 4 today has approved the Tennessee Valley Authority's (TVA) selected cleanup plan for the next phase of coal ash removal at the TVA Kingston site in Roane County, Tenn. The cleanup plan requires TVA to permanently store on site all of the ash being removed from the Swan Pond Embayment. The embayment area will then be restored to conditions that protect human health and the environment. After careful review of all comments received between January and April, TVA, EPA and the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC), agreed that the selected cleanup plan provides the best option to protect public health and the environment. According to the release, for the new perimeter dike TVA "will place dry ash atop an engineered base layer of sand, gravel and geo-fabric."

New for the Global Waste Management Symposium 2010 event! Tour the United States' first landfill solar energy cover system! Integrating new and existing technologies, the innovative solar cover project at Tessman Road Landfill in San Antonio, Texas, was brought online by Republic Services, as part of the company's ongoing commitment to creating cleaner, greener communities. It generates clean, renewable energy, reducing dependence on nonrenewable sources. GWMS 2010 will be held 3-6 October 2010 in San Antonio, Texas. Read more.

The City of Kansas City, Mo., has agreed to make extensive improvements to its sewer systems, at a cost estimated to exceed $2.5 billion over 25 years, to eliminate unauthorized overflows of untreated raw sewage and to reduce pollution levels in urban stormwater, the Justice Department and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have announced. Thought to be one of the largest green infrastructure plans in the country's history, it also sims to encourage the city to use natural or engineered "green infrastructure," such as green roofs, rain gardens and permeable pavement, to minimize stormwater burdens on the improved system.

Approximately 40 people attended the Fabricated Geomembrane Institute (FGI) short course "Constructing with Fabricated Geomembranes" held in Orlando, Florida on 14 May 2010. Attendees included Rodrigo Arevalo of Geomembranas Ltda in Bogota, Colombia and Marcel Niederhauser, Leister's (Switzerland) new Business Development Manager for North America. Richard Tedder of Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) welcomed attendees to the state. Read more in Ian Peggs' write up.

Alabama has nine ash ponds covering more than 2,300 acres. Those ponds contain more than 24 million cubic yards of coal ash. (A 10th pond is located in Alabama, but figures were not available for that Wilsonville, in Shelby County facility.) The state's capacity may grow to 81 million cubic yards. Liner retrofits may be necessitated. Learn more here.;

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has designated North Carolina State University (NCSU) as a Center of Excellence for Watershed Management. NCSU is the managing entity of the Water Resources Research Institute (WRRI) for the entire University of North Carolina system. This is the first Center of Excellence to be designated in North Carolina and the sixth in the Southeast. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Acting Regional Administrator Stanley Meiburg, NCSU Associate Vice Chancellor Matt Ronning, WRRI director Michael Voiland, and North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources (NCDENR) Secretary Dee Freeman signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to help communities identify watershed based problems and develop and implement locally sustainable solutions.

American Excelsior has been producing all natural wood fibers often referred to as "Curlex Excelsior" since 1888 and the fibers are still in use today for applications in ceiling board construction, packaging, display, erosion and sediment control and even as a filter media for oil. Now, there may be a use in oil spills and clean-up. Since Curlex fibers have a unique ability to cling to one another due to the "barbs" on each curly strand, it helps the all natural biodegradable fibers create an interlocking effect that adds integrity to the finished product. Read more.

The Fabricated Geomembrane Institute (FGI) held its second short course in Orlando, Florida at the Royal Plaza Hotel on the Walt Disney World Resort. The short course was organized by the University of Florida TREEO Center (www.treeo.ufl.edu) and attended by 41 people. The excellent presentations and discussions made the course a great success. The course covered the design, specification, testing, manufacturing, fabrication, installation, inspection, welding, and field testing of fabricated geomembranes in a variety of applications. Read more.

Thrace-LINQ promotes Daniel Selander to Market Development Manager, Geosynthetics. "This newly created position fits perfectly with our geographic expansion plans," says Davis Taylor, the Company's Vice President of Operations. Selander is an industry veteran with over 16 years of technical sales and quality experience.

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell testified in favor of a national infrastructure bank before a House committee Thursday. "It is obvious that existing revenue sources and methods are inadequate to address our vast infrastructure needs," said Rendell. The national infrastructure bank would help finance transportation and public-works projects across the U.S. Learn more here.;

Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) presented the Alabama Department of Environmental Management (ADEM) with a $200,000 Brownfields Assessment Grant. The Grant will be used by ADEM to conduct assessments at petroleum brownfields sites where the presence of underground storage tanks may have caused environmental contamination, making the sites unsuitable for redevelopment. Funds will also be used to conduct community outreach activities.

The latest issue of GIGSA News from the Geosynthetics Interest Group of South Africa is available. This issue includes stories on the return of HDPE geomembrane failures in Asia, specification savers, IGS election results, a letter from GIGSA President Garth James, "Geosynthetic Soil Reinforcement--Polymeric Geocomposites for Hydraulic Retaining Walls," defending the beaches of Durban, and more. GIGSA is the South Africa Chapter of the International Geosynthetics Society (IGS). Read the issue in PDF here.

A pilot project in Madison, Wisconsin is about to put to test whether the installation of geosynthetic booms can reduce the sometimes toxic algae that covers parts of lakes Monona and Mendota during the summer. One of the booms will follow the perimeter of the swimming area and stretch all the way down to the bay floor. Learn more here.;

In June 2009, TenCate Geosynthetics North America reported that it was working with the US Army Corps of Engineers on rehabilitating and protecting the coastline of Grand Isle (Louisiana, USA). A row of TenCate Geotube® GT500 containers measuring 9,600 metres in length forms the core of what will ultimately be a row of dunes. The impressive new levee stretches 2.4 kilometres across the island. See photos of the construction (including a tricky threading under a bridge) here.

Tri-Tech Holding Inc. (Nasdaq: TRIT), a leading Chinese company that engineers, manages and monitors China's municipal sewer systems, natural waterways and resources, announced today that revenue for the first fiscal quarter ended March 31, 2010 increased 48.7% to $4.2 million from $2.9 million in Q1 2009. Net income for the quarter was $817,614 or $0.15 per diluted share compared with net income of $600,252 or $0.17 diluted EPS in Q1 2009.

In an interview in the Independent (a newspaper in the United Kingdom), 29-year-old Karthick Kanchi Goverthanam talks about the study of technical textiles and their role in the world today. He says, "My first degree, in textiles technology, was at a university in southern India. In 2005, I came to England and did an MSc in advanced materials at Bolton, specialising in medical textiles, and geotextiles, which are the things used in roads and embankments." Read more. Learn more here.;

Textile materials are being used in some interesting ways in the efforts to soak up oil approaching the shores of the Gulf of Mexico in the wake of the explosion and sinking of BP's Deepwater Horizon oil rig off the coast of Louisiana late last month. Textile World received reports of two such efforts just this week -- one more high-tech and one less so, but also having potential to help minimize the effects of the spill on the coastal ecosystems. Learn more here.;

Year-over-year earnings reports show how far the global plastics industry has come since the start of 2009, with plastics titans Dow, ExxonMobil Chemical, and BASF showing double-digit gains in sales and volumes, even in Western economies that had heretofore lagged. Read more at Plastics Today. Learn more here.;

The new federal strategy for the Chesapeake region released today focuses on protecting and restoring the environment in communities throughout the 64,000-square-mile watershed and in its thousands of streams, creeks and rivers. The strategy includes using rigorous regulations to restore clean water, implementing new conservation practices on 4 million acres of farms, conserving 2 million acres of undeveloped land and rebuilding oysters in 20 tributaries of the bay. To increase accountability, federal agencies will establish milestones every two years for actions to make progress toward measurable environmental goals. These will support and complement the states' two-year milestones.