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Environmental Capital Partners has acquired a majority stake in Cascade Drilling LP, a provider of environmental drilling services for water and soil assessment, monitoring and remediation purposes on the West Coast. No pricing terms were disclosed. PNC Business Credit arranged the leveraged financing, while Cascade was advised by Morgan Stanley.

PRESS RELEASE

Environmental Capital Partners (“ECP”), a New York based private equity firm, with its affiliates announced today that it has made an investment in Cascade Drilling, L.P. in order to fund the Company’s future growth initiatives. Bruce Niermeyer, the Company’s founder, remains a significant shareholder and will continue as President and CEO of the Company. Mr. Niermeyer has been a leader in the drilling industry for decades and has been instrumental in developing Cascade Drilling into one of the largest independent drilling companies in North America focused on the environmental sector. The transaction enables the Company to expand significantly while affording it the ability to continue to service its customers at the highest level. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

“We are delighted with our investment in Cascade Drilling. By providing environmental drilling services for water and soil assessment, monitoring, and remediation purposes, Cascade Drilling is a perfect fit with our broader mission to promote the growth of companies that enhance environmental sustainability,” said Robert Egan, a Managing Partner of ECP. “Our investment provides the business with the flexibility to grow beyond existing locations in Seattle, Los Angeles, Sacramento and Portland and for expanded service offerings while maintaining its keen focus on safety and customer service. Technological advances in remediation, an ever increasing need to assess and clean up contaminated sites, and the improved economics of applications such as geothermal heat transfer will provide secular growth in Cascade Drilling’s core sectors. Bruce Niermeyer has built an industry leading company through deep knowledge and outstanding leadership; we look forward to partnering with Bruce in developing Cascade Drilling in the coming years.”

“Our relationship with ECP will provide us with a long-term partner to promote future growth and enable us to build upon our leadership position by expanding the locations in which we offer clients the highest level of service and safety,” Cascade Drilling President and CEO Bruce Niermeyer said. “I view the transaction as a natural progression within Cascade Drilling’s lifecycle. We have grown without outside resources to cover the entire West Coast and are now at the point where it makes sense to team with an institutional partner to take the Company to the next level. ECP has shown a strong commitment to Cascade Drilling’s core values of safety first and quality while demonstrating the skills and track record I was looking for in a partner.”

Morgan Stanley Smith Barney’s Capital Strategies Group served as exclusive financial advisor to Cascade Drilling in this transaction. PNC Business Credit arranged the financing for the transaction. O’Melveny & Myers LLP and Karr Tuttle Campbell provided legal advice to ECP and the Company, respectively.

About Cascade Drilling
Cascade Drilling is a leading provider of environmental drilling services for water and soil assessment, monitoring, and remediation purposes on the West Coast. The Company is a recognized regional leader in auger and direct push drilling, standard drilling methods for assessing the extent of subsurface contamination. Cascade Drilling also provides rotary, sonic and other drilling methods, which allows it to offer a wide range of environmental drilling services. The Company drills holes for a wide range of reasons, including providing samples of water and soil, installation of devices through drilling that facilitate monitoring, and subsurface application of chemicals or other agents for in situ remediation. Cascade Drilling’s core beliefs are safety first, customer service and quality. For more information about Cascade Drilling, visit www.cascadedrilling.com.

About Environmental Capital Partners
ECP provides long-term capital and management support to leading middle-market companies in the environmental industry with a focus on companies that provide goods and services to prevent, limit, or correct environmental damage to water, air, soil, or human health. Based in New York, ECP typically seeks to invest $5 to $25 million of its own capital in companies with sales of $20 to $150 million. ECP’s model is to invest in established businesses with strong growth potential that can benefit from its financial, operational and strategic resources. For more information, visit the company’s website at www.ecpcapital.com.

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For many years, we’ve been among those (helped along by the usually excellent GAO) pointing out that the FCC’s “broadband competition” stats were totally bogus. They relied on a rather bizarre way of counting competition. First, if a single household in an entire zipcode got broadband (er, actually not really broadband, but we’ll get to that), then everyone in that zip code was counted. On top of that, the definition of broadband was ridiculously low. This has been known for years, and the FCC kept putting out the same bogus stats every years — sometimes even admitting that it knew the stats were bogus, but it didn’t have anything better. More recently, to its credit, the FCC is trying to get better about both how it defines broadband and how it counts things — but that’s just opened up opportunities for the telcos to simply tell the government what sort of coverage they offer, without having to reveal any actual data.

But, still, with the bogus FCC data out there, many folks are trying to claim that there’s robust competition in broadband in the US. Thankfully, Julian Sanchez is pointing out that friends shouldn’t let friends use FCC broadband data to discuss competition, and highlights the ridiculousness of the claim that 88% of zip codes have “four or more” broadband providers. It’s even worse than Julian notes. While he points out that in many cases, some of the providers in question are mobile broadband providers offering up pokey EVDO connections, he neglects to mention that most of these connections cost a ton and come with ridiculously low usage caps — such that they’re not really broadband offerings at all. In fact, most 3G broadband data offerings have explicit limits in their contracts saying they cannot be used as primary broadband connections. But, it doesn’t stop the same lobbyists who happen to be paid by the same telcos who make these policies from claiming that there’s robust broadband competition.

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One of the issues with the OLPC project has always been power. There’s just not electricity in all the parts of the world where the OLPC is intended to be used. There is a solution available, however, and it’s being tested in Afghanistan. We have just seen pictures of the first pedal power conversion for the OLPC.

It’s still a prototype, but it’s looking promising. The builders have created a pedal power alternative to the hand cranks used on the standard OLPC, and it definitely makes sense to do so. The human body can certainly pedal easier then it can a crank, and the creators of the modification have stated that it’s easy enough to use that a 3rd or 4th grader can power it. Might be hard to type while you’re doing that, but at least you’ll have a full charge.

Here’s a new viral video for Electronic Arts’ Army of Two: The 40th Day (PS3, Xbox 360, and PSP), featuring the live Rios and Salem wreaking stealthy …

 Tonight’s the night, guys! Over 800 GameStop branches will be opening their stores at midnight with Uncharted 2: Among Thieves sitting prettily …

The new WikiReader is a $99 portable device from the Openmoko group that stuffs every Wikipedia article into a pocket-friendly traveling companion. While those of us entrenched in technology day in and day out may scoff at the idea of having Wikipedia at the ready (we all have smartphones, remember?), this is something that might be able to make some waves with baby boomers and/or the technically petrified.

I’ll have a hands-on/review this week but the basic gist is that the unit uses two AAA batteries, a low-power CPU and monochrome touchscreen, and standard microSD cards to house all the articles. It’s not a connected device, either. Everything’s completely offline.

Updated microSD cards can be sent out via snail mail every few months for a yearly fee of $29 or the entire multi-gigabyte file (specially compressed for the WikiReader) can be downloaded and installed manually for the more technically-inclined.

Photos aren’t shown on the device, unfortunately, but the easy-to-use interface, months-long battery life, and straightforward updating process ought to entice certain consumers interested in all the information that Wikipedia provides without the hassle of full-fledged computers or complicated mobile devices.

The WikiReader will be available shortly on Amazon.com or directly from theWikiReader.com — the official company site.

Pediatric dental care, long a concern of children’s health advocates, is poised to get a major boost with each of the Democratic health reform proposals.

“The silver lining of all this heated debate, for children at least, is that in almost every conversation, in every version of a bill, there’s some provision for children’s oral health,” said Amir Moursi, chair of the department of pediatric dentistry at New York University’s College of Dentistry.

Yet in a surprising twist, some insurance industry experts worry that the legislation may create unintended consequences and disruptions for adult and family dental coverage.

While he calls the children’s benefit “an unbelievable mark of progress,” Jeff Album, the vice president for public and government affairs for Delta Dental insurance company, fears that adults and employers may drop their dental coverage because of the legislation’s treatment of dental plans and taxation of insurance benefits.

Many dental experts say the proposed mandate for children’s coverage addresses a serious need, one that gained national attention in 2007 when Deamonte Driver, a 12-year-old Maryland boy who lacked access to dental care, died after bacteria from an abscessed tooth spread to his brain. Currently, about twice as many children are without dental coverage as those without medical insurance.

“Silent Epidemic”

Furthermore, pediatric dental issues represent children’s most common unmet health care need, according to the Surgeon General’s first report on oral health in 2000. It found that tooth decay is the single most common chronic childhood disease, five times more common than asthma and seven times more common than hay fever.

The report described dental disease as a “silent epidemic” that created significant social, financial and health burdens disproportionately affecting low-income, minority and rural populations. It also said research suggests intriguing associations between chronic oral infections and diabetes, stroke and heart and lung disease.

Dental coverage lags for adults, too, despite significant gains in the past 20 years. According to the most recent information from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, in 2004 54 percent of Americans had private dental coverage, 12 percent had coverage through government programs such as Medicaid and 35 percent had no dental coverage. Dental industry estimates suggest that the number of insured has increased only slightly since then.

Adult coverage, however, is not mandated in the reform proposals.

All the major bills in Congress require that pediatric dental care be included in the coverage guaranteed to anyone purchasing insurance through the government-sponsored marketplace for health plans, also called an insurance exchange or gateway. The House bill also calls for that benefit to be extended to the private market, including employer-provided plans, in five years.

One of the issues for legislators was what plans would be considered qualified to provide the children’s pediatric dental benefit. Currently, 97 percent of dental coverage comes from stand-alone plans that are separate from medical health insurance.

Decoupling Dental From Medical Insurance

Initially all the bills called for pediatric dental care to come from plans that also offer medical insurance. But the Senate Finance Committee’s bill and the House bill have been amended to allow stand-alone dental insurance companies to provide that coverage. Dental insurance experts said, however, it is not clear if those amendments will survive in the full House and Senate.

But Jim Crall, a professor of pediatric dentistry at the University of California at Los Angeles, said it is important that reform take into consideration how the dental industry works now so that the changes can be implemented smoothly and not lead to problems for families that have dental insurance. “Otherwise,” he said, “we’re going to end up with a hollow promise.”

For example, dental insurers are worried that if Congress goes forward with proposals to tax high-cost, or Cadillac, insurance plans, some of those plans may ditch their adult dental coverage to help keep the overall premiums below the tax threshold.

Album said dental insurers also fear that parents may be less likely to buy the stand-alone coverage for themselves if their children have coverage that comes as part of comprehensive medical insurance package.

According to a 2008 survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation, 44 percent of employers that offer health benefits also offer or contribute to dental coverage. (KHN is a program of the foundation.)

Some dental experts suggest that securing the pediatric benefit in the overhaul package should be the top priority and that more narrow issues, such as the best means to provide the coverage, should be addressed later.

Burt Edelstein, the founding director of the Children’s Dental Health Project, stressed that the inclusion of dental experts in the board overseeing the insurance exchange would help to make sure important delivery issues are addressed.

The House has already recognized the need for an oral health expert to sit on any health benefits advisory committee, while Rep. G. K. Butterfield, D-N.C., has called for a federal study on the need for affordable adult dental coverage.

Edelstein said getting the dental benefit is important and advocates on the issue should not focus on concerns “that could in any way cause the dental benefit to be revisited” and stripped from the proposals.

Many of the current concerns are caused by the dental industry’s unique history and structure. Dentistry’s separation from medical care makes integration a formidable task.

Dentists are trained separately from doctors while dental insurance developed much later than medical insurance with a different set of diagnostic code, billing system and benefit structure. As such, dental contracts are generally created separately from medical ones and people often consider dental insurance to be more elective than medical, according to dental experts.

This separation can cause problems for patients, such as when serious dental needs require work in a hospital’s operating room. In such instances, it’s often unclear whether dental or medical insurance will cover the costs.

The Tragedy of Deamonte Driver

The case of Deamonte Driver illustrates the medical dangers of untreated dental problems. Driver and his brother had erratic dental care because their Medicaid coverage would sometimes lapse and their mother had difficulty finding a dentist who would accept Medicaid payments.

Driver’s death led to congressional hearings that showed how children face many difficulties in accessing care despite Medicaid’s requirement that states provide pediatric dental services. It also helped prompt the inclusion of eight specific pediatric dental provisions in the law signed last February that reauthorizes the Children’s Insurance Health Program (CHIP), which covers poor children whos family incomes are too great to qualify for Medicaid.

A Government Accountability Office report released last month found that such barriers, which include extensive bureaucracy, low dental reimbursement rates and shortages of dentists who will take Medicaid reimbursements, still exist.

Medicaid rates vary by state, but a 2008 study found that dental reimbursements are often 30 to 50 percent of the usual and customary fees charged locally. The dentists got paid as little as $15 to see a Medicaid patient. The study was published by the National Academy for State Health Policy.

The GAO report found that the number of children on Medicaid getting dental care has improved in recent years, but is still low. The number has grown from 27 percent in 2000 to 35 percent in 2007, and only one state reported a rate above 50 percent.

Allen Finkelstein, chief dental officer at AmeriChoice, suggested that the paucity of dentists accepting Medicaid may be because “we don’t reward physicians and dentists for prevention.”

Finkelstein considers Driver’s death a wake-up call for policymakers to use a more holistic approach to health care and suggests integrating medical and dental care in simple ways, such as having a dental visit be part of a child’s immunization record or having physicians do fluoride varnishes.

He points out that AmeriChoice, which provides both dental and medical care, already reimburses physicians who put fluoride on children’s teeth.

“You really have to imbed dentistry with medicine. … We have to change the way we think,” said Finkelstein, who considers the pediatric dental benefit a move to greater integration. “It’s an adjustment phase, but it’s a wonderful start.”

Related resource: The Children’s Dental Health Project’s side-by-side comparison of dental provisions in the proposed legislation

Pennsylvania’s hospitals got a small piece of good news when an overdue budget came with smaller than expected cuts. But there and in other states, programs continue to find programs and budgets on the chopping block.

Modern Healthcare: “Pennsylvania’s overdue budget included smaller cuts to hospital revenue than proposed, but redirected existing taxes and fees into the state’s $27.8 billion general fund from healthcare funds and added a Medicaid managed-care tax” (Evans, 10/12).

The (Norfolk) Virginian-Pilot: “Most Virginians don’t like key aspects of the Democrats’ health care reform proposals and believe they will lead to higher taxes and rationing of health care, according to a new poll.” The poll was conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research (Bartel, 10/13).

The Arizona Republic: “With its five conservative Republicans, two liberal Democrats and three centrists, Arizona’s delegation represents the major groups Obama must contend with in Congress” to pass health reform (Kelly, 10/13).

The Salt Lake Tribune on the threat to a Medicaid-funded help program for seniors: “Through the state-funded Alternatives Program [one senior] got help with household chores and grocery shopping. Mary, his aide, is “an excellent worker. She does my laundry and fixes things up around the apartment,” he told the Tribune. The man was nearly evicted after failing to maintain his apartment in the aftermath of a stroke. But, budget woes could end the Medicaid-funded program (Rosetta, 10/12).

The Associated Press/The Boston Globe: A Colorado insurer, “Rocky Mountain Health Plans said Monday it will no longer consider obesity a ‘pre-existing condition’ barring coverage for hefty infants.” The change followed a decision to refuse coverage to a 17 pound 4-month-old whose father works at a Grand Junction NBC affiliate (10/12).

A Surgeon General’s  report on oral health, released in May 2000, found:

–Tooth decay is the single most common chronic childhood disease and is five times more common than asthma and seven times more common than hay fever.

–More than half of all children aged 5 to 9 have at least one cavity or filling. More than three quarters of all those who are 17 years old have a cavity or filling.

–Poor children have twice as many cavities as children with more resources and their disease is more likely to be untreated.

–For each child without medical insurance, there are at least 2.6 children without dental insurance.

–Children lose more than 51 million school hours because of dental problems. 

A September 2009 report by the General Accountability Office found:

–The number of children on Medicaid who were getting dental care grew from 27 percent in 2000 to 35 percent in 2007.

The 2004 Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) found:

–Approximately 54 percent of the entire U.S. population had private dental coverage in 2004. Another 12 percent was covered by public programs, such as Medicaid, and 35 percent had no dental coverage.

The 2009 National Association of Dental Plans/Delta Dental Plans Association Enrollment Report says:

–The number of Americans with dental benefits nearly doubled from the mid-1980s, and is now relatively stable at 57 percent.

The Kaiser Family Foundation 2008 Survey of Employer Benefits found:

–44 percent of employers offering health benefits also offer or contribute to dental insurance that is separate from the medical insurance.

The Children’s Dental Health Project:

A side-by-side comparison of dental provisions in the proposed legislation

 

A few weeks ago, reader cofiem sent over a blog post from musician Darren Hayes complaining about recording studios shutting down and blaming “piracy” for it. This morning, our submissions engine is getting overwhelmed with submissions about Wil Wheaton’s rant against someone who posted a copy of Wheaton’s audiobook, saying the guy is “stealing” from him.

Of course, we see content creators complaining about “piracy” or falsely claiming that it’s “stealing” all the time — but these two cases are slightly different. They’re both cases where the content creators seem to be folks who otherwise actually do seem to “get it.” They both do an amazing job connecting with fans, and setting up smart “reasons to buy.” Hayes, for example, created a DVD “collectors’ item” to go with his latest album. And he has a fan club setup, that encourages fans to pay a small fee to get all sorts of valuable (scarce) extras, beyond just the music. Wil Wheaton, of course, has been online for ages, and really interacts with lots of fans, and when he released his audiobook he made it cheap and didn’t put DRM on it at all.

In other words, these are both the sort of content creators who are doing all the kinds of “right moves” that we talk about all the time, and seem to be getting rewarded for it. So, of course, it’s disappointing to see them overreact and go a bit on the ballistic side when they see people sharing their works in some format — but it’s not that surprising. It’s a perfectly natural reaction if you’re not immersed that deeply in thinking through the long term implications of these things to simply not like it when people treat your works in a way other than you intended. There’s nothing really wrong with that.

However, the question then comes up about what should be done about it. How do you respond to such people? It seems the smartest thing to do is to openly explain the other side of the coin: how these efforts can be embraced to further all of the really smart things that these content creators have already done. It’s about getting them to realize that as scary as “the new world” is, one of the things they have to come to accept is that they can’t necessarily control what others end up doing with their works. They can’t dictate the terms by which fans will be fans. But, what they can do is try to put in place systems and models that benefit them when such things happen. Use that free sharing to encourage people to become stronger, more committed fans, and open up new places and opportunities to potentially offer them a reason to buy — on their terms — down the road.

It’s never a huge surprise when someone who hasn’t thought through this stuff carefully starts ranting about pirates and “stealing.” But when it’s someone who otherwise seems to get it, the situation is more one of disappointment. However, in most cases, those folks are at least open to listening to reason, and listening to their community, who can explain back to them ways in which they can benefit, rather than complain or blame. And, in fact, with Hayes, it looks like he took some of his community’s words to heart and noted that there can be future models where “piracy” isn’t necessarily a huge problem (though he’s still unsure of how it works). Hopefully Wil Wheaton will listen to his community as well — and let them point out how many other authors who have put their works online for free have seen that it tends to increase their fan community and increase sales over time.

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If we told you how many emails we get asking about BlackBerry 8520 availability and pricing for Canada, there’s a good chance you wouldn’t believe us. It so happens that one of our Canadian connects (ninja is so yesterday) just blessed us with more information on the Rogers BlackBerry 8520 than we know what to do with. As far as colors go, as we’ve seen, it will be available in black and violet color options. The built-in UMA support will enable the device to take advantage of Rogers’ TalkSpot service just like the T-Mobile variant in the United States does. Here’s a brief recap of device specs before we get into the really good stuff:

• 512MHz CPU
• 2 megapixel camera, fixed focus, no flash
• 320×240 display
• 256MB of RAM
• 3.5mm headset jack
• QWERTY keyboard
• Trackpad
• Wi-Fi with UMA
• Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE

In terms of pricing and availability, the BlackBerry 8520 is available starting tomorrow, October 8th, for $99 on a three-year agreement with minimum combined service fees of $45/mo or more.

If a hard drive is going everywhere with you, it’s a smart move to get one of these ruggedized ones. I recently reviewed LaCie’s 1TB Rugged XL, and while I found it to be less than a rock, it was more sturdy than your average drive and more prepared for the everyday issues one runs into. These A-DATA SH93 models, however, are fully rugged, conforming to MIL-STD-810 ruggedness parameters, meaning it can be dropped while running and can survive under a few feet of water for up to 30 minutes.

That’s right, now you can take your drive into the shower with you. It’s really more that you don’t have to worry about losing all your backups if you spill coffee on it, but the limitations are good to know anyway. Personally, my advice is to have your regular in-PC hard drive, a large backup or two that stay on your desk, and then a 2.5″ drive to carry around with you. And if you’re going to be carrying it around, may as well make it a rugged one, right?

They’re available in 250, 320, 500, and 640GB versions, but there’s no pricing info yet. I’d guess you’re looking at at least a $50 premium on similarly-sized drives. I’ll see what I can do about reviewing one of these suckers.

[via GearLive]

A few weeks back, we got a press release from EA’s PR company. It was tucked within an attachment titled “Rock Band Verizon iPhone Fact Sheet_V3.docx”. As if seeing “iPhone” behind “Verizon” wasn’t strange enough, the rest of the press release made absolutely no reference to an iPhone release. The folks we talked to denied that an iPhone port existed, and we chalked it up as a really, really strange typo.

Looks like it was more of a Freudian slip.