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Why hasn't the stock reacted to this good press release:
LAWRENCEVILLE, N.J., Sept. 10 /PRNewswire/ -- Envirogen, Inc. (ENVIROGEN)
(Nasdaq: ENVG) announces that the Office of Biological and Environmental
Research at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE/OBER) has named ENVIROGEN and
the Department of Geosciences at Princeton University as Co-Principal
Investigators in a recently awarded grant totaling $2.8 million. Under the
terms of the three-year grant, ENVIROGEN and Princeton University will conduct
an interdisciplinary field research program in bacterial transport. This
information is critical toward developing a more efficient biological
degradation approach for groundwater contaminated with toxic metals and
radionuclides. ENVIROGEN's share of the grant, administered under DOE/OBER's
Natural and Accelerated Bioremediation Research Program (NABIR) and awarded to
a team comprising multiple disciplines, is $716,558.
The project, "Enhancement of Bacterial Transport in Aerobic and Anaerobic
Environments: Assessing the Effects of Metal-Oxide Chemical Heterogeneity,"
will focus on bioaugmentation, or the injection of bacteria into the
subsurface, to remediate metallic and radionuclide contaminants present in
groundwater at DOE sites. Bioaugmentation is a cost-effective alternative to
traditional "pump and treat" cleanup methods but has met with the technical
difficulty of moving bacteria, which adhere strongly to solids, within an
aquifer throughout the contaminated zone. Although some field-scale research
on aerobic bacterial transport has been published, very little reliable data
exists on bacterial transport under anaerobic conditions, which are likely to
occur within a contaminated aquifer environment.
This work will build upon previous bacterial transport research conducted
by ENVIROGEN under a grant by the DOE Subsurface Science Program directed by
Dr. Frank Wobber, Program Manager at DOE/OBER. That project, "Subsurface
Transport of Bacteria With Altered Adhesion Characteristics," examined the
relationship between bacterial adhesion and transport under aerobic
conditions. The new NABIR grant will go beyond this previous research to
include bacterial transport under anaerobic conditions. This is particularly
significant for remediation purposes because most contaminated aquifers have
little or no dissolved oxygen. Anticipated accomplishments of this work
include: a mechanistic understanding of the role of metal oxides, dissolved
metals and anaerobicity in the transport of bacteria; the development of
methods to enhance transport of bacteria; and the development of a
bioaugmentation strategy for bioremediation of metal and radionuclide
contaminated aquifers.
Dr. Harch Gill, President and CEO of ENVIROGEN said, "The NABIR funding is
a unique opportunity to increase our knowledge of bacterial transport in the
field under both aerobic and anaerobic conditions. The results of the project
will potentially provide the fundamental building blocks in the development of
a cost-efficient biological treatment approach targeted at a new business area
for ENVIROGEN -- metals and radionuclides." Dr. Wobber added, "The team's
combined expertise in geology, microbiology, hydrology, chemistry and
geophysics will enable us to considerably advance our knowledge in this
field." Included on the team are: the University of Montana, the Lawrence
Berkeley National Laboratory, Old Dominion University, the University of
California at Davis, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Florida
State University.
ENVIROGEN is a leading technology-based environmental systems and services
company that provides solutions to industrial effluent and hazardous waste
remediation problems. The Company also designs and implements integrated
systems for the on-site treatment of organic contaminants from soils and
groundwater.
Statements made in this press release related to the DOE/OBER's NABIR
Program and ENVIROGEN's interest in and ultimate success at commercializing
products and/or services based on the results of the Program are forward
looking and are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Securities
Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements involve risks and
uncertainties which may cause results to differ materially from those set
forth in these statements. In addition, the economic, competitive,
governmental, technological and other factors identified in ENVIROGEN's
filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission could affect such results.
SOURCE Envirogen, Inc.
-0- 09/10/97
/CONTACT: Gale Smith, Corporate Communications of ENVIROGEN,
609-936-9300/
(ENVG)
CO: Envirogen, Inc.; U.S. Department of Energy; Princeton University
ST: New Jersey
IN: ENV
SU: JVN
PD-JS
-- PHW008 --
6146 09/10/97 09:39 EDT prnewswire.com |
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