R.I. joins petition over mercury emissions

Rhode Island is joining six other Northeast states in petitioning the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to control out-of-region mercury emissions that contaminate fish, the state Department of Environmental Management has announced. In the petition, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York and Vermont, along with the New England Interstate Water Pollution Control Commission, referred to a provision of the Clean Water Act that requires the EPA to craft agreements to resolve multistate pollution issues. Specifically, the EPA administrator would have to convene a management conference with all states that are significant sources of mercury in the Northeast waters to develop an agreement among those states to reduce the level of pollution. Multiple research studies have shown that the majority of mercury in Rhode Island’s waters now comes from out-of-region sources such as coal-fired power plants, whose mercury emissions drift to the region on air currents and then fall directly into waterways or get carried into them by runoff.

GTECH to open Fla. printing plant

GTECH Printing Corp., a unit of Providence-based GTECH Corp., will open an instant-ticket printing plant in Lakeland, Fla., in the spring that will employ more than 100 workers. GTECH said another 100 employees would be added in three to five years and the company’s total investment will be more than $45 million in the area. Robert Vincent, a GTECH spokesman, said the company acquired an existing business and is doing an upgrade to create a state-of-the-art printing facility. The new 100,000-square-foot plant will produce 11 billion instant tickets annually. GTECH is a wholly owned subsidiary of Lottomatica, based in Italy.

CVS completes tender for Longs shares

Woonsocket-based CVS Caremark Corp. said yesterday it has completed its tender offer for all of the outstanding common stock of Longs Drug Stores Corp. About 28,317,338 shares of Longs were tendered, representing approximately 78.07 percent of the outstanding shares. CVS said it expects to effect, without a vote or meeting of Longs’ stockholders, a short-form merger on or about today to complete the acquisition. Longs will then be an indirect wholly owned subsidiary. Each of the remaining outstanding shares (other than any shares owned by CVS or its subsidiaries) will be converted into the right to receive the same $71.50 in cash per share, without interest, that was paid in the tender offer. Following the merger, Longs’ common stock will cease to be traded on the New York Stock Exchange.

Time Warner, LIN TV end dispute

Time Warner Cable Inc. has reached an agreement to carry local television stations owned by Providence-based LIN TV Corp., ending a payment dispute that blacked out channels in 11 U.S. markets for most of this month. Time Warner or its affiliate, Bright House Networks LLC, will restore LIN stations in cities including Austin, Texas, and Green Bay, Wis., ending an interruption that began Oct. 2, said Courtney Guertin, an LIN spokeswoman. The dispute involved retransmission-consent fees, which are payments cable operators make for the right to carry local broadcast signals. Financial terms of the agreement weren’t disclosed.

Attleboro company fined $2.3 million

An Attleboro manufacturer will pay $2.3 million to settle allegations that it broke Massachusetts pollution laws in the second-largest environmental-protection settlement in state history, Attorney General Martha Coakley’s office announced. The chemical plant, owned by Somerset, N.J.-based Zinsser Co. Inc., makes a range of materials used in the production of everything from pharmaceuticals to varnish. The state accused the company of inaccurately reporting its emissions of certain organic compounds that can cause smog. The state also said the plant didn’t accurately report its use of toxic chemicals and dumped polluted wastewater into the nearby Ten Mile River. The payment includes a $2-million civil penalty and $300,000 for two local environmental projects — one involving a riverbank and water-improvement project in downtown Attleboro and another that would reduce pollution by idling diesel locomotives.

Slater Fund commits $500,000 to biotech firm

P&H Therapeutics Inc., a Providence-based company developing next-generation drugs to treat hypertension and dyslipidemia, has won a $500,000 commitment from the Slater Technology Fund, the state-backed venture capital fund. P&H was cofounded by William Park and Daniel Holsworth, former Pfizer research scientists with extensive experience in hypertension and cardiovascular disease and a combined 24 patents. Company chief executive officer Robert Valentini previously cofounded Cell-Based Delivery and Myomics. Richard G. Horan, senior managing director of the Slater Technology Fund, said, “Once proof of principle is established in the clinic, P&H plans to partner with pharma companies to advance its lead products into large-scale clinical trials. While challenging, the strategy offers tremendous upside potential if the company’s research strategies succeed.”

Insurer requires electronic prescriptions

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts has announced that effective Jan. 1, 2011, it is requiring physicians who prescribe medications to do so electronically to qualify for any of the company’s physician-incentive programs. The new requirement applies to both primary-care physicians and specialists. Currently, 99 percent of primary-care physicians in the HMO Blue Network and 78 percent of specialists participate in the incentive plans, which reward physicians for meeting identified nationally recognized quality standards and patient safety goals. Prior to the announcement, e-Prescribing was an optional incentive measure rather than an eligibility requirement.

Merchant Marine Academy picks new leader

Rear Adm. Allen Worley, who has 30 years of service as a Navy officer and educator, has been named the new superintendent at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, N.Y. Worley is superintendent at the Texas Maritime Academy and succeeds Vice Adm. Joseph Stewart, who announced his resignation in July after 10 years at the academy. The school awards bachelor’s degrees in marine engineering or marine transportation and a merchant marine officer’s license. Graduates are required to spend five years in the maritime industry and eight years in the U.S. Naval Reserve as payback for a free college education.

Smokejumpers heading to Worcester

Two dozen U.S. Forest Service smokejumpers from seven Western bases will climb trees in Worcester, Mass., for the next two months, looking for infestations of the Asian longhorned beetle. The group includes five jumpers from the Missoula, Mont., smokejumper base, three from the West Yellowstone base and four from the Grangeville smokejumper base in northern Idaho, all in the Forest Service’s Northern Region. The smokejumpers in Worcester worked previously on beetle infestation projects in Chicago, New York and New Jersey. Boyd Burtch, team leader for the group, says part of rookie training in the smokejumper program is learning to climb trees; and Burtch says these climbers have learned what to look for in searching out the Asian longhorned beetle.