Two Israeli wastewater firms to locate in Michigan

Michigan’s Lt. Gov. John Cherry Jr. has helped secure commitments from two Israeli water companies to set up pilot operations in Michigan.

Sha`ar Hefer, Israel-based EPC is planning to locate pilot projects in the U.S. state’s Oakland County. Founded in 1992, EPC is focused on the development, production, and sales of on-site wastewater treatment plants based on a full biological process.

The company offers a decentralized approach that is expected to help improve water quality, reduce energy costs, and benefit the community’s economic development efforts.

EPC maintains most of its business in the Middle Eastern and European markets, although it is expanding in the United States. EPC’s CEO Jeremy Weissman said in a news release that if the projects go as planned, the company would consider establishing a manufacturing plant in Michigan.

The second company, Caesarea, Israel-based Emefcy, is also planning to locate a pilot project in Michigan. The company’s technology produces electricity from the wastewater treatment process, using microbial fuel cell technology, and is expected to help reduce energy costs at wastewater plants in the state.

The technology has applications in industrial and municipal wastewater treatment plants, the food-processing industry, and in the agricultural community for confined animal feeding operations.

The announcements, which came out of Cherry’s recent investment mission, are expected to help meet Michigan’s Green Jobs for Blue Waters initiative, aimed at establishing the state as a North American leader in the water technology sector. The initiative focuses on municipal, industrial, agricultural, and residential water use with a target of providing the state with clean and sustainable water resources.

Israel, the “Silicon Valley” of water technology, is fast becoming a cleantech incubator to the world (see Israel to export $2.5B in water technologies by 2011 and The top 10 cleantech countries of 2009).

Israel recycles 75 percent of its wastewater, invented drip irrigation, and is home to the world's largest reverse osmosis desalination plant (see Israel plans largest desal plant in $513M deal).

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