The federal industry ministry has announced a $591,634 Technology Partnership Canada (TPC) investment in a Zenon Environmental Systems project. The project is expected to create or maintain approximately 88 jobs in Burlington over a seven-year period.

This repayable TPC investment is supported under the environmental technologies component of TPC to help Zenon develop and demonstrate an aerated non-oily wastewater membrane treatment system (AMTS) that can be used by naval warships and merchant vessels. At present, systems for reducing or eliminating wastewater pollution are too large to be used on naval vessels.

The United States Navy is also providing $985,900 in funding to develop a wastewater treatment system for its warships that meets the rigid environmental standards now being implemented throughout the world. In this project, Zenon will use its proprietary ZenoGem^TM and ZeeWeed^TM technologies, coupled with new control systems and packaging, that will permit these technologies to be installed in confined spaces.

The success of this demonstration project for the United States Navy could help Zenon gain a dominant position in the US military market and potentially lead to the purchase of wastewater treatment systems by navies in North America and Europe, as well as by domestic and foreign merchant ships.

In 1971, sediment samples were taken from Lake Erie and frozen. At Environment Canada's National Water Research Institute in Burlington, a comparison has been done between 1995 samples and those of 25 years ago. The results are encouraging. The most abundant contaminants taken from all 46 sites around the lake were PCBs and these showed an overall decrease of 65.5%.

The results also showed PCBs declined less in the more isolated north central basin than in the south central basin. Similar trends were observed with residues of DDTs, chlordanes and Hexachlorobenzene.

Photo shows the project at the early stages.

The Lapinière pumping station in Dorval, situated a few kilometres north of the city of Montreal, will be the world's largest circular pumping station when completed this year. This concrete structure is 33m deep with a diameter of 24m for a volume of 15,000 cubic metres, the equivalent of 300 swimming pools of 8m in diameter each. At the heart of the Lapinière station are 16 ITT Flygt 3302 pumps which will pump 500 l/s each, at a head of 34 metres.

The pumping station is part of the new La Pinière wastewater plant which is being built by the engineering consortium of Dessau-Gendron Lefêbvre. Gerald Pilon is the chief project engineer.

Due to warm stratospheric temperatures over Canada this past winter, stratospheric ozone values were close to normal values this spring. This situation is expected to continue during the summer with ozone values being within three percent of normal from May until September. Ultraviolet radiation values at the surface are also expected to be within the same range.

The warm temperatures in the stratosphere were a result of the advection of warmer air into the northern latitudes from the south. In addition, the arctic closed upper circulation, known as the arctic vortex, did not form to the same intensity or duration as in 1996 or 1997. Thus temperatures in the high arctic did not drop into the minus 75 to 85 range normally associated with severe ozone depletion. Although UV-B values are forecast to be in the normal range, Canadians should still take precautions against getting too much sun.

There are year-to-year fluctuations in the ozone layer, and while 1998 seems to be close to normal, this is not yet a signal of ozone layer recovery.

The Hoover Institute reports that if temperatures rose 2.5 degrees celsius, deaths in the United States from respiratory diseases such as pneumonia and influenza, diseases of the circulatory system, and even infectious diseases would drop by about 40,000 per year. Global warming might reduce medical costs by about $20 billion annually, reports Thomas Gale Moore of the Hoover Institute in his paper Health and Amenity Effects of Global Warming. For a copy, contact (415) 723-1754.

Auto-rickshaws and three-wheeled taxis are found in all major cities in Pakistan and numerous other countries. They are powered by two-stroke gasoline engines and burn a gasoline-oil mixture, creating high emissions that adversely affect air quality. The Pakistan government is trying a number of different solutions, including natural gas as a fuel. Environment Canada's Environmental Technology Centre is involved in a joint project with a Canadian company called Yugo-Tech to improve a gaseous fuel-injection system for the two-stroke engine that would result in fewer emissions.

A professor in Carleton University's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Dr. Wayne Parker, has received a Petro-Canada Young Innovator Award for his research into the impact of petrochemical contaminants on the environment. He is using the award, worth $10,000, to conduct a study on the response of soil and groundwater to petrochemicals leaked from underground storage containers.

Praxair, Inc., through its regional company in Italy, Rivoira SpA, was chosen by the Committee for Public Viewing of the Shroud, to supply the technology and gases that will help protect the Shroud of Turin from degradation during a forthcoming exhibition.

The Shroud, believed by many to be the shroud in which Jesus was buried, will be on public exhibition in Turin beginning April 18, 1998. It is estimated that between three and 4 million visitors will view it.

An argon-based specialty gas mixture, prepared by Rivoira, will protect it against oxidation, humidity, flammability and bacterial growth (argon is an inert, non-flammable gas). The atmosphere inside the glass case housing the Shroud will be continuously monitored at several points. The computer-based system is connected to Rivoira's plant, in order to verify oxygen, moisture content, temperature and pressure. The technology allows for quick reaction if the environment inside the case changes.

The Ontario community of Bosanquet needed a way to install its water meters in homes without basements. Such meter installations had to be below ground level, easily accessible, yet resistant to frost, rain and snow.

Attempts to use concrete pipe and precast concrete pits proved to be inconvenient as backhoes and bulldozers, needed for such installations, were difficult to maneuver between homes and the concrete pits were too narrow to easily inspect and repair the water meters.

Peter Hegler, P.Eng., working for Bosanquet, designed his own meter pits using 30" (750mm) diameter smoothwall high density polyethylene pipe. So far, he has used 2,000 feet of HDPE pipe to create about 400 meter pits.

Hegler says he has shared his idea with representatives of other municipalities, and received very favorable responses.

He cuts the pipe into five-foot lengths, then installs it vertically below grade and covers the top with foam insulation and a concrete lid. "The 1" (30mm) dead space between the walls of the pipe provides enough insulation to keep the meters from freezing. Installation is much easier, since we can make field adjustments by hand," he stressed.