Water
Industry News
national news 
global
issues
Cal-Am
loses eminent domain taking of Felton water system
California-American
Water Co. tried and failed to short-circuit the eminent domain
process under which San Lorenzo Valley Water District is moving to
acquire Cal-Am’s Felton water system.
US EPA updates infrastructure needs
The U.S. needs to
invest $202.5 billion in its wastewater infrastructure due to
aging facilities, rising water quality standards and population
growth according to EPA -- 8.6 percent more than the federal
agency said was needed in 2000.
West
Virginia American Water admits to losing one-third
of treated water
By its own admission, West
Virginia-American Water Co. leaks, mis-measures and simply loses a
third of the water its customers pay to have treated and pumped.
The problem at West Virginia-American is getting worse, and it’s
going to cost ratepayers one way or another — on top of the huge
rate hike that the utility is already pushing for.
Bond-like
assets draw more money in these uncertain times
"These types of
assets generate very steady cash flows," says Arthur
Simonson, managing director of Standard & Poor's utilities and
infrastructure rating group. "They're bond-like." Ernst
& Young figures that private investment money could finance
infrastructure projects worldwide to the tune of $240 billion to
$360 billion a year.
Private
equity contracting in '08 ? -- no big deal
but many small ones
Gone will be the Wild
West-style deal making of early 2007, which was fuelled by cheap
and easy debt. In its place - a return to caution and greater
quality regarding both assets and their prospective buyers,
according to Torys' report, the Top 10 M&A Trends for 2008.
"I think we've seen a halt, at least, in the very, very large
deals led by private equity," Tory's reports.
New
funds and old jump into US infrastructure in 2008
Babcock & Brown
raised an additional $230 million of committed capital focused
primarily on infrastructure investment opportunities in North
American markets. This increases Babcock & Brown's total
amount raised for acquiring North American infrastructure to more
$1 billion. Washington, D.C.-based global private equity firm The
Carlyle Group recently entered the market, raising more than $1
billion in equity commitments this fall for its first
infrastructure fund, Carlyle Infrastructure Partners (CIP). Many
more jump into the pool...
$41
trillion for global ... $1.6 trillion for US infrastructure
"Infrastructure: A
Global Opportunity for Investors" notes that $41 trillion
will be needed to modernize urban water, electricity, and
transportation systems globally, during the 2005-2030 period,
according to an estimate by Booz Allen Hamilton. In the United
States, the figure is $1.6 trillion, according to research by the
American Society of Civil Engineers. There are two distinct but
massive infrastructure tasks: in emerging markets, a massive
build-out to support growth; in the United States and the
developed world, a focus on repair and replacement, according to
U.S. Global Investors.
Global
investment ahead
China just reported
that investments in fixed assets - factories, property, plants and
equipment soared
26.6% to $747 billion in the first seven months of this year,
as the country tries to build needed facilities and capitalize on
most opportunities as its economy continues to rocket along. Not
all of this investment is related to infrastructure, but a lot of
it is.
CalPERS
to allocate up to $2.5 billion in infrastructure
The nation's largest public pension fund plans to allocate up
to $2.5 billion into an inflation-linked new asset class that will
include the pilot infrastructure program as well as investments in
commodities, inflation-linked bonds and timber.
Huge
hikes due in municipal water rates -- the bill comes due
Some communities are
getting scalded by price hikes of 50%, 100% or more. Many
municipal owned systems have treated rate hikes like tax increases
and avoided them for years. The Government Accountability Office
estimates that 29% of water systems and 41% of sewer systems
charge customers less than the cost of the service.
Tampa Bay desalination plant open for business ... finally
The nation's largest
desalination plant has passed a final round of testing and is now
officially part of Tampa Bay Water's regional water supply system.
The plant successfully completed a 14-day acceptance test during
which it produced 28 million gallons a day. The acceptance test
was the final act in the difficult and expensive four-year
struggle to get the plant operating properly.
With the successful acceptance test, American Water can now
collect the final $3 million payment on its $29 million contract.
The
Tampa Bay back story -- how good projects go bad when governments
get greedy
What
if we don't rebuild the nation's pipes?
What happens if we don't invest in water pipes?
What happens if half the water leaks? Lost water -- yes, but
lost city streets and all the cables that run beneath and the
children that walk on top. The EPA projects that unless cities
invest more to repair and replace their water and sewer systems,
nearly half of the water system pipes in the United States will be
in poor, very poor or "life elapsed" status by 2020.
In
praise of private equity
Like most other successful
industries, from supermarkets to pharmaceutical giants, success has brought envy, jealously and, all too predictably, increasingly
vocal attacks against private equity firms in the media. They have
been accused of all the usual sins from which capitalist
entrepreneurs supposedly suffer: short-termism, asset stripping,
greed and excessively secrecy.
On The Street
RWE
now plans to IPO American Water end of April or September or October
or...
RWE said in November that
it would miss an earlier goal of selling American Water shares in
2007 because of an ``unfavorable'' market environment. At the time,
the company scrapped plans to buy back stock and pay a higher
dividend and set a new target to complete the sale by at the end of
April or in September or October.
Babcock
& Brown European Fund over the top
Babcock & Brown reached final close on its European
Infrastructure Fund with total commitments of €2.17 billion
exceeding its initial target of €1.5 billion.
Water
Facts
The
truth about plastic bottles
Is
it so that: “Reusing plastic water bottles (PET) can cause them to break down into carcinogenic compounds
(diethylhydroxylamine or DEHA).
reprinted from The
Water Connoisseur
The
origin of water
Water
is the essence of life, but where did water come from? The latest discoveries in astrophysics point to water not being a natural terrestrial product but imported from the edges of our solar system.
reprinted from The
Water Connoisseur
Archaea -- the oldest new solution to wastewater
treatment?
The
story of sludge processing
How
it is generated, dewatered, dried, distributed.
