Layne Christensen Co. (LAYN) announced fiscal second-quarter results yesterday after the closing bell. The company reported GAAP net loss of $8.6 million or 45 cents per share, compared to GAAP net income of $15.1 million or 78 cents per share in the year-ago quarter. Excluding a non-cash impairment charge, net income came in at $4.4 million or 23 cents per share, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate by nearly 92%, or 11 cents. Layne Christensen is engaged in providing drilling services and related products and services in 4 principal markets: water infrastructure, mineral exploration, geotechnical construction and oil and gas. The company’s customers include municipalities, industrial, mining, oil and gas companies and consulting and engineering firms. The Mission Woods, Kansas-based company’s revenue slumped 19.4% year over year to $217.2 million, still it came in ahead of the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $214.8 million. Sales from ...

Water, water everywhere… and not a drop to drink.  Though the earth is 70.8% water, only 2.5% is potable freshwater, the majority of which can be found only in glacial ice.

This leaves less than 1% of the world’s water supply for its 6.87 billion human inhabitants, crops, and livestock.

Even worse, our tiny portion of the world’s water is becoming increasingly polluted and is consumed at unsustainable rates.

Fortunately, Paris based Veolia Environnement (NYSE: VE) has everything it takes to help us avoid the looming global water shortage and pad our portfolio.

With operations in 66 countries, Veolia provides water and wastewater management, transportation, and energy services to countries in desperate need of fresh water.

In fact, Veolia operates in all five countries considered to have the most potential for growth in the water and wastewater industry. And with roughly 20% of the world’s population, China is at the top of this list.

Currently water pollution

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Veolia Environnement SA (NYSE: VE): Stock of the Day

Judith Martin, The Investment U Research Team

Water, water everywhere… and not a drop to drink.

Though the earth is 70.8% water, only 2.5% is potable freshwater, the majority of which can be found only in glacial ice.

This leaves less than 1% of the world’s water supply for its 6.87 billion human inhabitants, crops, and livestock.

Even worse, our tiny portion of the world’s water is becoming increasingly polluted and is consumed at unsustainable rates.

Fortunately, Paris based Veolia Environnement (NYSE: VE) has everything it takes to help us avoid the looming global water shortage and pad our portfolio.

With operations in 66 countries, Veolia provides water and wastewater management, transportation, and energy services to countries in desperate need of fresh water.

In fact, Veolia operates in all five countries considered to

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Water is, by far, the most important element we need to survive. You can go a month without eating, but not even a week without water. Lack of adequate drinking water has killed almost 800,000 people this year. Now politicians are throwing billions of taxpayer dollars at water and wastewater systems.

Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act sets $126 billion aside for infrastructure projects. The majority of this is for roadwork and water infrastructure.

On top of that, $144 billion more is going to state and local governments. A large amount of that cash will be spent on these failing water systems. After all, we’ve already seen pipes burst throughout the country, and no one wants to be next governor on CNN trying to explain why the state didn’t fix its water pipes.

Right now, there are a handful of dividend producing water infrastructure stocks that are giving investors the chance to profit

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Fresh Water: California Drought Reveals the “New Oil” by David Fessler, Advisory Panelist, The Oxford Club

A few weeks ago, during a particularly bad cold snap, we had a pipe freeze underneath our 200-year-old farmhouse, causing us to go without water for a few days. I eventually managed to unfreeze the pipe, but there was no question it was disruptive for a busy household of four.

Here in the United States, we don’t realize how much we take our fresh water supply for granted, until it’s suddenly cut off. We’re used to turning on the faucet and there it is.

But for the folks in California, 2009 is shaping up to be a big fresh water disaster in the making. Last Thursday, state water officials reported that the snow pack in the Sierra Nevada Mountains is only 61% of what is considered normal for this time of year.

An with only

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America’s dilapidated water infrastructure is in desperate need of upgrading, says Chris Mayer. And the situation is similar in many countries throughout the world. And worse still, supplies of clean, fresh water are dwindling across the globe. Chris says these two trends can make water a ‘blue gold’ for investors.

This from Penny Sleuth:

Two days before Christmas, a 66-inch water main burst on River Road, not far from where I live, during morning rush hour. Water spewed out at a rate of 150,000 gallons per minute, turning River Road into an actual river for a time. People at the scene described the burst as a bomb going off. The road itself took significant damage.

The force of the water - going at 12-15 miles per hour - pushed cars around like so much debris. Firefighters had to rescue people from their cars as freezing cold water swirled around them.

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The Claymore fund has not been assigned a ticker yet, but will trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange. 

 

Claymore Investments, the Canadian asset management arm of U.S. exchange-traded fund provider Claymore Securities, is joining the ranks of the green-minded asset managers by launching a global sustainability ETF.

The ETF launch, scheduled for some time in the next two weeks, coincides with the creation by KLD Indexes and Jantzi Research of the Global Environment 60 Index (GE60), to be published by FTSE and used by Claymore for the new ETF.

The Claymore fund has not been assigned a ticker yet, but will trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

While there has been a rash of sustainability and environmentally themed ETFs in the U.S., Claymore believes the new ETF will be the first such portfolio in the Canadian ETF market.

"Canada is a fairly small market and the first-mover advantage is less

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With over 275 offices worldwide and approximately 8,500 employees, Tetra Tech Inc. is a leading provider of consulting, engineering, and technical services. Founded in 1966, and listed on the NASDAQ, the company operates in three segments: Resource Management, Infrastructure Services, and Communications Services. Their corporate mission is to be the premier global consulting and engineering firm.

Headquartered in Pasadena, California, Tetra Tech began as a provider of engineering services related to waterways, harbors, and coastal areas. Today, they offer expanded services and their fiscal year 2007 revenues were $1.55 billion. Overall, the company provides environmental water/wastewater management, infrastructure services, communications support, systems support, security design, and outsourced technical services.

Their Resource Management division focuses on the management of water resources. They help support government programs for water quality improvement and environmental restoration. They also support the productive reuse of defense facilities as well as engage in strategic environmental resource planning. They

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