EBI News for June 18, 2025 – GEI to provide instrumentation and data systems for dam safety
EBI News for June 18, 2025 – The following news section contains the latest stories for the environmental industry. Including, GEI to provide instrumentation and data systems for dam safety, acquisitions, and more!
WSP to acquire Ricardo plc
WSP Global Inc. (Montreal, Canada) is acquiring the environmental and engineering consulting firm Ricardo plc (Shoreham-on-Sea, UK) in a deal valued at £363.1 million pounds or approximately C$670 million including debt. Ricardo serves the transport, energy, and environmental markets and has approximately 2,700 professionals across Europe, Australia, North America, Asia, and the Middle East. The deal will strengthen WSP’s presence in several key markets, including the UK, Australia, and the Netherlands. Over the last few years, Ricardo has been reorienting its business towards its air quality, water management, energy resilience, policy strategy, and advisory services, in addition to its rail portfolio. The acquisition “perfectly aligns with WSP’s vision for sustainable, compounding growth and our clear ambitions to expand in advisory, energy transition, water solutions, and the rail sector over the next three years,” said Alexandre L’Heureux, president and CEO of WSP. Under WSP’s ownership, Ricardo will continue an ongoing strategic review of its Automotive and Industrial and Performance Products segments (approximately 1,000 professionals), which is likely to result in the sale of those businesses at a later date. Ricardo was formed as Engine Patents Limited by Sir Harry Ricardo in 1915 during the First World War and is one of Britain’s oldest independent engineering companies.
GEI to provide instrumentation and data systems for dam safety
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) has selected GEI Consultants (Woburn, Mass.) to provide instrumentation/automated data acquisition systems for USACE’s Enterprise Dam Safety Modification Center. GEI and its teaming partners will design and install instrumentation packages that integrate with Corps’ MIDAS and other systems to monitor changes in its portfolio of dams. “USACE wanted to continue adding and improving their monitoring systems for critical sites in real time,” said GEI Vice President Asher Peltz. “GEI’s experts and our data monitoring will help USACE to accurately understand risks posed to the structural integrity of their dams, to people, and to property.”
B&V selected for Indonesian solar-plus-storage project
Black & Veatch (Overland Park, Kansas) will serve as owner’s engineer for the Vanda Solar & Battery Project in the Riau Islands, Indonesia. Black & Veatch will provide the overall project engineering design and procurement services for the solar photovoltaic (PV) and battery energy storage system and supporting infrastructure for Vanda RE’s project. The project, which is underpinned by 2 gigawatt peak of solar PV installed capacity and 4.4 gigawatt hours of battery storage, is part of a green economic corridor being developed between Indonesia and Singapore. Vanda RE is a joint venture co-owned by Gur?n Energy and Gentari to develop renewable energy projects in Asia.
Verdantas acquires Surf to Snow
Verdantas (Tampa, Fla.), a portfolio company of Sterling Investment Partners, has acquired Surf to Snow Environmental Resources Management Inc. (S2S, San Ramon, Calif.). Surf to Snow is a family owned consulting firm with expertise in stormwater management, environmental planning and permitting, biological analysis, water and natural resources, erosion and sediment control and site restoration services. The acquisition will enhance Verdantas’ technical bench with approximately 90 new staff and geographic reach, particularly in the western United States, with strong client relationships in the power utilities sector. “The addition of S2S reflects our shared vision to grow Verdantas into a national leader in environmental consulting,” noted James Soldano, a managing partner at Sterling.
EA wins environmental contract for brownfields redevelopment
EA (Hunt Valley, Md.) announced that it has been awarded a contract by Bridgeport Station Development LLC for environmental consulting services associated with the brownfields redevelopment of a 33-acre shoreline property formerly known as the Bridgeport Harbor Station coal plant in Connecticut. The contract involves comprehensive environmental consulting services, including the transfer and compliance with existing permits, remedial investigations, remedial action planning and oversight, stormwater and wastewater discharge compliance, and site closeout reporting. EA will manage environmental programs and permit compliance for existing and proposed new permits required prior to facility demolition. The plant ceased operations in 2021 and has since been a source of blight and stifled investment in the neighborhood. The State of Connecticut is funding $22.5 million for demolition and remediation of the plant.
RSK acquires Chile’s AGEA
RSK (Helsby, UK) announced the acquisition of AGEA (Santiago, Chile), an environmental and social management consulting firm, in a deal designed to support the group’s global growth in this sector while strengthening its presence in Latin America. Founded in 2002, AGEA’s work has seen more than 6,000 MW in renewable energy projects approved under Chilean environmental regulations. Clients include Michelin, Rio Tinto, Total, AES, EDF, Colbún, Transelec, SQM, ENGIE and Mainstream Renewable Power Chile. Recent projects include environmental approval of the Horizonte Wind Farm owned by Colbún, with 140 wind turbines and a total potential capacity of 980 MW. AGEA will join Amphos 21, another key RSK business in Chile. RSK now comprises more than 200 companies and employs over 15,000 people. The group’s annual revenue at the end of FY24 was £1.9 billion.
Mercury in rivers doubles since industrial revolution
Mercury levels in the world’s rivers have more than doubled since the pre-industrial era, according to research from Tulane University. According to Tulane, the research establishes the first known global baseline for riverine mercury pollution. The study, published in Science Advances, developed a process-based model to simulate mercury transport in rivers and found that global rivers carried approximately 390 metric tons of mercury to the oceans annually before 1850. Today, that figure has jumped to about 1,000 metric tons per year. The study identified small-scale gold mining as a particularly significant contributor to mercury pollution in South America, Southeast Asia and parts of Africa. Industrial mercury releases were identified as the main driver of increases in regions like East Asia, where rivers in China contribute more than 70% of the regional mercury. The Yangtze River’s mercury flux has more than doubled from pre-industrial levels.
U.S. adds 8.6 GW of solar module manufacturing capacity
The U.S. solar industry added 8.6 gigawatts (GW) of new solar module manufacturing capacity in Q1 2025, marking the third-largest quarter for new manufacturing capacity on record. The surge comes from eight new or expanded factories in Texas, Ohio, and Arizona, according to the U.S. Solar Market Insight Q2 2025 report released by the Solar Energy Industries Assn. (SEIA) and Wood Mackenzie. In addition, U.S. solar cell production capacity doubled in Q1 to 2 GW with the opening of a new factory in South Carolina. The report finds that the U.S. solar industry installed 10.8 GW of new electricity generating capacity in Q1, and solar and storage account for 82% of all new generating capacity added to the grid. However, tariff uncertainty, new anti-dumping and countervailing duties on cells and modules from Southeast Asia, and potential shifts in federal energy incentives could significantly hinder U.S. solar deployment and manufacturing, the report cautioned.
Catalyst capable of cleaving PFAS carbon-fluorine bonds
The key to PFAS’ effectiveness – and their environmental persistence – lies in having an extremely stable molecular structure, especially their carbon–fluorine (C–F) bonds. Chemists at Goethe University’s Institute of Inorganic and Analytical Chemistry in Germany have developed a catalyst that can cleave the C–F bonds within seconds and at room temperature. The heart of the catalyst consists of two boron atoms embedded into a carbon framework in a manner that makes them resistant to air and moisture. Christoph Buch, first author of the study, explained: “To break C–F bonds, we need electrons, which our catalyst transfers with exceptional efficiency. So far, we’ve been using alkali metals like lithium as the electron source, but we’re already working on switching to electrical current instead. That would make the process both much simpler and more efficient.” Beyond PFAS degradation, the catalyst could also have pharmacological applications.
New species discovered in icy depths of Southern Ocean
Scientists on board a deep-sea expedition to the remote South Sandwich Islands near Antarctica have returned with a “treasure trove” of photos of previously unseen marine life, according to an article in Euro News. During their 35 days at sea, researchers found coral gardens, hydrothermal vents and many potentially new species while exploring the island chain, including the deepest trench in the Southern Ocean. Corals, sponges, snails, sea urchins, sea stars, sea cucumbers and benthic ctenophores are among the discoveries. The exact number of new species will be announced later this year when experts have assessed and cataloged the findings. The Ocean Census expedition included a team of scientists from GoSouth—a collaboration between the UK’s University of Plymouth, the British Antarctic Survey and Germany’s Geomar.
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