Chlorination system delivered for China's Chengdu drinking water plant
Severn Trent Services will provide its Capital Controls® turnkey chlorination system for the first construction phase of the Chengdu Seventh Tap Water Plant in Chengdu, China. The designed capacity of the plant's first-phase of construction is 500,000 tons/day. In order to address growing water consumption, the plant's long-term capacity will reach up to one million tons/day. For the past 20 years, Severn Trent Services has provided chlorination solutions for approximately 95% of all potable water treatment plants in Chengdu, including the city's second, fifth and sixth plant.
Microvi Biotechnologies and MWH Global partner
Microvi Biotechnologies is partnering with global leading wet infrastructure firm MWH Global to bring its water technologies to Australia and the Asia Pacific. Building on a number of commercial projects already operating in Australia, Microvi and MWH are working on projects that deal with the treatment of wastewater removing organic carbon and ammonia and a variety of pollutants in water, including nitrate. Future plans include working with three major water utilities in the Asia Pacific to build large-scale demonstration plants that will incorporate Microvi's technologies.
McKeown takes over as CEO of AWA
The Australian Water Association (AWA) has named Jonathan McKeown as chief executive officer effective 27 May. McKeown replaces outgoing CEO, Tom Mollenkopf, who announced his intention to stand down from the role earlier this year. AWA president, Lucia Cade, said that Jonathan brings substantial experience from the private and public sectors in highly commercial environments, as well as significant leadership experience and understanding of membership based organisations. The new CEO spent four years as the chief executive of the New South Wales Farmers Association, before moving into management consulting.
Potentially radioactive leak at Japan's Fukushima plant
Japan's Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco) discovered water leaks that could be radioactive at the tsunami-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station and faces the decision of dumping it in the Pacific Ocean, according to media reports. Contaminated water may have leaked into the ground from one of the plant's underground storage tanks, Tepco was reported to have said.
In a statement Tepco said the assumed cause of the leakage was a "decrease in flange surface pressure induced by the change in the tightening condition of the flange due to the air temperature change overtime".
The Japanese firm said the flange has since been replaced and "contaminated gravels have been removed".
"We understand that we have caused tremendous worry to the people of Fukushima and the wider public and we apologise for that," Tepco spokesman Masayuki Ono reportedly said.
Meanwhile Bloomberg reported that Tepco has built a makeshift sealed cooling system but that "underground water is breaching basement walls at a rate of about 400 tons a day".
The news agency quoted Kazuhiko Kudo, a research professor of nuclear engineering at Kyushu University, who reportedly said that reducing radiation levels in the water and pouring it into the sea is one of two options for the company. The other is to keep building above ground storage tanks.
It was on March 11 2011 when a devastating 8.9 magnitude earthquake struck the east coast of Japan, bringing part of one of the world's largest economies to its knees. In an earthquake prone region, Japan had become resilient to a series of smaller events throughout its history. But it was the scale of the resulting tsunami which many east coast civilians did not expect. Measuring nearly 10 metres in height, the giant wave struck the country with full force.
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said it was visiting the plant in April to review the country's plan for decommissioning the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station.
The review is expected to be the first of a two-mission programme to provide IAEA support for Japan's decommissioning of the damaged reactors at Fukushima Daiichi.
