At the time the acquisition was announced late in June, the ink was barely dry on Lyonnaise's agreement to purchase Pittsburgh-based Calgon. This spring, Vivendi, Lyonnaise's rival in Europe, purchased American water giant USFilter. Indeed, the U.S. partners often can boast of extensive technology and engineering expertise, while their European counterparts have much experience in contract operations. Another goal is take advantage of the burgeoning wastewater outsourcing trend. Our career survey The outsourcing or privatization mantra is nothing new, but our latest career survey suggests the trend is finally picking up steam among Pollution Engineering readers.
More readers report their companies have begun outsourcing environmental functions in the past year.
You can read about other results from our 1999 survey in this month's Pollution Engineering. Also online, you can look up back issues of Pollution Engineering International to get a sense of the technologies and projects European companies have been involved in lately.