I have been visiting India for almost 5 years traveling to the many corners of this fascinating country. In no way would I consider myself an expert, I am but a curious and somewhat knowledgeable observer. In that short time, I have seen very significant development, growth and opening of the Indian Economy to foreign investment and products. At the same time we are seeing the impact of the India throughout the world, as Indian's are moving out into the world economy developing businesses and becoming the CEO's of many international companies.

The statistics that I have seen, indicated that the Chemical Sector is growing at 12% and the Industrial Sector at 6-8%.  This growth is in many areas, in the "Old Style" heavy industries such as Power Generation, Refining and Petrochemical, as well as the "New Age", high tech industries of the IT World. This is a tremendous accomplishment. My congratulations to all of you for being a part of this growth. But there is still much to do.

In my opinion, the KEY COMPONENT of growth and development is WATER;

• It's availability
• Use and
• Protection.

As countries develop World Class Industrial Sectors, they must adopt World Class Water and Environmental Standards.

Water must be;

Properly valued,

Conserved,

Reused and

When discharged upgraded to the highest standards.

It is important that India benefit from the lessons learned by the United States, Europe and other countries right here in Asia. All too often environmental standards were and are compromised in the interest of economic development.

I am not sure how familiar you are with the Southern US in particular Louisiana, and the Mississippi River. The Mississippi River runs from the Canadian Border to the Gulf of Mexico. It has been the major waterway that facilitated the development of the central part of our country, from New Orleans north. During and after world War II, the stretch of river from Baton Rouge Louisiana to New Orleans developed into one of the major refining and petrochemical centers in our country due to the availability of natural resources and inexpensive river transportation. If you have never seen it, it is hard to imagine the number of refineries and chemical plants in that short 150-km stretch of river from Baton Rouge to New Orleans. Every one of them is dependent on that river for makeup water and to have a place to discharge their wastewater. At the same time this industrial development was taking place the entire upper Mississippi continued to grow as people populated the midwest.

I grew up in Louisiana, a state that was famous for it's wild life and culture. It also became known for the refineries, the chemical plants, and more infamously the pollution— Pollution of our rivers and our land. Sadly, much of this was due lack of technology, but also to people, companies, and to some extent regulatory agencies turning a blind eye to environmental compliance in the interest of economic development. In all fairness, when much of the industrial development was taking place (in the 1930's to the 60's) environmental management and protection was an developing science. Many people felt that the Mississippi River was a bottomless pit and could absorb anything that was thrown into it with no problem. As we all came to know that was not true.

Having grown up in Baton Rouge and New Orleans I am well aware of what we called the Chicken Coop Effect. Living in the lower Mississippi River Basin is like being on the bottom shelf of a chicken coop. You get all the STUFF (if you know what I mean) from everyone above you.

Depending on the size of the coop and the number of chickens over your head, it can get very STUFFY. And Baton Rouge/New Orleans are on the bottom of a VERY LARGE CHICKEN COOP—

You really learn to appreciate the chickens on the top rack that are considerate of the ones on the lower rack. So please avoid the CHICKEN COOP EFFECT here.

Throughout the world, water is in short supply due to

• droughts,
• expanding populations,
• industrial demand, and
• pollution which is reducing the usability of water resources.

Right here in India a number of very significant water recycle plants have been built. One is in Manali south of Chennai where secondary treated municipal effluent is sent to a teritiary treatment system, cleanedup, and reused as industrial water. A major World Scale Refinery on the western coast is recycling the effluent water to their cooling towers. These types of projects are demonstrating to the rest of the world how water can be cleaned up and recycled. An added benefit of these projects is that people involved, in the projects are moving out into Asia sharing their knowledge and expertise, representing India..

Singapore is another country that is deeply impacted by a lack of water supply. Singapore's Economic Development Board is driving the new development of both heavy industry, and the high tech semiconductor industry in Singapore. Both industries require large quantities of water.

Singapore imports the vast majority of its domestic and industrial water from Malaysia. This is a strategic concern for Singapore. To address this, Singapore and the industries there have initiated a number of projects that are addressing this problem,

• First is a recycle facility using Reverse Osmosis Membranes to upgrade municipal waste water for industrial water use and,
• Another similar experimental facility that is converting municipal wastewater into drinking water.

One last example in Asia —- a refinery in South Korea had to install a system to recycle it's own industrial wastewater when they expanded the refinery. There simply was not enough fresh water to operate the expansion. This project involved the use of the EDR Process on their treated waste water.

These types of projects are what are needed throughout the world, to help protect our available water resources.

Each one of these projects is taking wastewater that was or is being discharged to the environment and reprocessing it or recycling it. For all of these projects to work, the waste treatment facility that is in front of that treatment plant must operate reliability and produce the highest quality water. This is what I would like to address—the operation of these waste treatment facilities.

Over the last 10 years I have completed numerous water management audits throughout the United States and Asia. A key part of each of these audits is the waste treatment plant. One common problem I see is that the waste treatment plants are often not performing up to specification or producing the best quality water possible.

Problems develop because of:

• Process expansions of the parent site without taking into consideration the waste treatment plant,
• Poor maintenance, 
• Insufficient technical support and
• Poorly trained operating personnel. Not poor quality people but just poorly trained and equipped to do the job at hand.

The question is how do we do this?

The water and wastewater treatment plants must be given the highest priority in three key areas. The three areas are:

• Management
• Operation-
• Technical support

When a Refinery Vice President walks into his office in the morning, the first question that he typically asks is how much oil did we process yesterday?

I think the second question should be

"How good is our wastewater?" Is it better quality than the environmental limits? If not why not and when will it be corrected?

If we get to this point, then we will be doing a good job of protection our environment and insuring the future of our growth.

Second, Operation - the expertise of the operating personnel has to be of the highest quality- as good as or better than you would want in your most profitable processing area. the waste treatment plant is not performing, there may be no place to put the waste from the processing units so they have to shutdown so doesn't it make sense to value the waste treatment operation?.
 

Third-- Technical Support - this applies to internal support from the engineering departments and laboratories as well as support from outside the company. From suppliers and consultants. The waste treatment plant should be in a prestigeous position. Industry would do well to establish partnerships with supply companies that can help them understand their systems and operate their waste treatment plants. Proper waste treatment plant operation can be a difficult process that many companies are not prepared to address or staff up for. Whereas there are companies that do have the capabilities to do this type of work in many different configurations. This configuration can take many forms, which many of you are probably aware of. These business arrangements can range from a company acting purely as a consultant, to actually taking over the waste treatment plant operation, If the water is reused it can then be sold back as a product.

One final area that I would like to see changes, made is in the approach that governmental agencies take in administering effluent limits. 
 

Typically the effluent limits are set by an environmental regulatory agency such as the EPA, using their own standards or the standards set in the USA or Europe. If you meet the limit you are OK. If you do not you pay a fine and then go on about your business. Sometimes these limits are good and help protect the receiving body of water, sometimes they are too lenient or are ineffective. This to me is not a positive approach to environmental management. There is no incentive for companies to exceed the limits or to produce better water than is required. Their job is to meet the limits.

From the Plant Operation standpoint, this process is purely economical. As a effluent generator, I will do no more that is necessary. If I spend more money on my waste plant and produce higher quality water going to the outfall than my permit and/or my competitor it will hurt my costs structure relative to his and it will affect my bottom line and potential to sell my product. Therefore my approach is to only meet the limits set by the Environmental Regulatory Group.

What I would like to see is an incentive plan where companies that continually improve their effluent water quality are given some form of credits, either economic or tax or whatever which could be used to upgrade the water systems or their even their processes to reduce waste generation and water use. 

Additionally, I would like to see a system where positive publicity statements are issued by the government to the public acknowledging the work and the efforts of the ecologically responcible or aggressive companies and the employees. This requires some manner of communications from the Environmental Agencies to the public to educate them as to how the companies are performing in the area. 

All Companies thrive on good Publicity and suffer from bad Publicity. Under these conditions, there would be an incentive to do better than what is legislated and the water supplies would be cleaner.

Our company has an award that we call the "ROE" or "Return On the Environment" Award . This award is given to a very select few of our customers. The ROE Award is presented to our customers who while working in partnership with our representatives are are able to document one or more of the following:

• A significant reduction in their environmental impact in quantity or an improvement in the quality of discharges,
• A significant reduction in water use and or discharge
• A significant reduction in operating costs

There have been two Winners of the ROE award in Asia Pacific, Tata Steel, in Jamshedpur in 1998 and Methanex Methanol in New Zealand in 2000. This is one small step we have taken to recognize and encourage industry to reduce their environmental impact.

  In Summary-

• Water is THE KEY raw material or feed stock for industrial growth in any country and certainly in India. The availability of clean water will promote the development of a World Class Industrial Sector.

• The development of a World Class Industrial Sector requires and demands the application of World Class Environmental Standards-

• Water is in very short supply in India and many parts of this world, and as such, must be properly valued, and conserved, for if a country wishes to have a world class industrial sector it must have world class environmental standards-

• Please avoid the Chicken Coop Effect in your country, and work at reducing the impact of the Chicken Coop Effect

• Waste treatment plants are the key to our future and must be operated as if our future depends on them, because it does?

• Waste treatment plants must be given top priority in the form of management, operation and technical support within all companies.

• And finally, I would like to see a governmental body develop an environmental policy that gives incentives to companies to produce better quality water than is required at the same time constantly raising the quality of water allowed—in other words working together with the producers to improve the quality of the water.

Next Mr. Venkatesh will present a specific case history on water recycle.