Armed with new technology and ideas, Minnesota companies are part of a trade mission to post-tsunami Sri Lanka to rebuild and renovate its water system.
March 30, 2005
BY JENNIFER BJORHUS
Pioneer Press
Minnesotans take it for granted, but clean drinking water is a major issue in post-tsunami Sri Lanka.
And on Friday, a group of executives from Twin Cities-area environmental companies will head to Sri Lanka to help the island country rebuild and modernize its damaged water infrastructure.
The Minnesota Trade Office had scheduled the week-long trade mission before the December Indian Ocean tidal wave ravaged Sri Lanka's coastal areas. It then postponed and reorganized the trip to better fit Sri Lanka's rebuilding effort. The goal for the U.S. companies - five from Minnesota, four from Wisconsin - is to find private-sector partners in Sri Lanka to help them enter the market.
Steve Riedel, the Minnesota Trade Office's international trade representative who is organizing the trip, said he thought this was the only private trade mission to Sri Lanka under way that is focused on water.
Riedel said he took a cautious approach, not wanting to look like an ambulance chaser on the heels of a catastrophe. After the December tsunami struck, he traveled to Sri Lanka to assess the situation and broadened the trip's focus from watershed management to also include helping replenish the country's fresh-water supply. The tsunami's tidal waves of salt water destroyed water-treatment equipment and contaminated fresh water wells. Since the catastrophe, Riedel said, Sri Lankans have been purifying water with donated equipment.
"The temporary solutions for drinking water can't go on forever," Riedel said.
Riedel asked companies to reapply for the mission and explain how they would deal with reconstruction efforts in a disaster area. That changed the roster of companies participating, Riedel said.
The Minnesota companies participating include Aeromix Systems Inc., a Golden Valley company that makes aerators for wastewater treatment plants; GAIA Group Inc., a Prior Lake wastewater treatment consultantcy; HDR Inc., a Nebraska-based engineering company with a wastewater practice in its Golden Valley office; North American Wetland Engineering in Forest Lake, which designs and builds wetlands to treat water; and Equerries Corp., an Afton company that sells small, on-site septic systems that don't use chemicals.
The four Wisconsin delegates are from Aero-Stream LLC, which sells aerobic wastewater treatment products; civil engineering firm Fehr-Graham & Associates Inc.; Butler Engineering Inc., a wastewater engineering consultantcy; and BT2, an environmental engineering company.
The trade visit was temporarily thrown into question again Monday following another earthquake that registered 8.7 magnitude off Indonesia's west coast. Sri Lankan government officials issued tsunami alerts and evacuated some beach fronts. The earthquake killed as many as 2,000 people in Indonesia but didn't trigger another deadly tidal wave.
"It seemed like it was going to be a repeat nightmare," Riedel said.
The trade visit is being financed by a $140,000 grant from the U.S.-Asia Environmental Partnership, a program of the U.S. Agency for International Development begun in 1992 to help Asian countries with industrialization issues such as air and water pollution. Ananda Mallawatantri, Sri Lanka's country director for the U.S.-Asia Environmental Partnership, did post-doctorate work at the University of Minnesota and urged Minnesota trade officials to apply for the fellowship, Riedel said.
Minnesota exports very little to Sri Lanka - only $1.2 million worth of goods in 2003, mostly computer and electrical products and electrical equipment. But it's stayed in local news headlines since December because of the efforts of Woodbury resident Srilal Liyanapathiranage to raise donations here to rebuild part of a coastal village in Sri Lanka.
Sitting in on a briefing in downtown St. Paul Tuesday, Liyanapathiranage said the business mission was well-timed because the tsunami disaster has forced the Sri Lankan government to become more flexible.
"The government has an opportunity to rebuild with new technology, new ideas," Liyanapathiranage said. "They are looking forward to this kind of knowledge."
Mark Liner, a senior engineer from North American Wetland Engineering, said his company's approach of engineering artificial wetlands to treat wastewater would be a good model for Sri Lanka, a country without a lot of centralized treatment facilities or a sophisticated network of pipes and pumps to move water, he said.
The group leaves Friday and returns April 9.
Jennifer Bjorhus can be reached at jbjorhus@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-2146.
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