News Release

U.S. EPA Signs Letter of Intent with Singapore Institute of Environmental Science and Engineering

Release date: 05/19/2004

Contact: Jane Ice (513) 569-7311

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CINCINNATI (May 19, 2004) – The U.S. EPA’s Environmental Technology Verification (ETV) Program launches its first formal collaboration with an international partner on May 20 with the signing of a Letter of Intent between EPA and Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University’s Institute of Environmental Science and Engineering (IESE).

Franklin Lavin, U.S. Ambassador to Singapore, and Su Guaning, President of Nanyang Technological University, will sign the Letter of Intent at an international conference sponsored by the University’s IESE.

The purpose of the Letter of Intent is to highlight possible collaborative activities between ETV and IESE in the development and exchange of test protocols for verification of environmental technologies. For the initial project, the IESE and ETV will jointly develop a protocol for testing ballast water treatment technology. Other areas of interest for the partnership include technologies for:

• air pollution control
• greenhouse gas and energy
• water and wastewater treatment

The international partnership will have benefits for the health, economic, environmental, and social well being of the United States, Singapore, and Asia in general.

ETV is a public-private partnership that provides quality-assured, peer-reviewed test data about the performance of new environmental technologies. The information is used by purchasers and regulators in their decisions to select innovative environmental technology. More than 260 technologies have been verified across a wide spectrum of environmental science and engineering categories.

EPA also relies on this quality science as the basis for sound policy and decision making.

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