EarthSoft Announces Acquisition of LakeWatch

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

EARTHSOFT ANNOUNCES ACQUISTION OF LAKEWATCH
...advanced data management and analysis for lakes and reservoirs...

CONCORD, MA, April 18, 2006 --/WORLD-WIRE/-- EarthSoft today announces the acquisition of LakeWatch, the world's leading software for analyzing water quality trends within lakes and reservoirs. Developed by Dr. Noel Burns, an internationally renowned limnologist in Auckland, New Zealand, LakeWatch allows users to effectively and efficiently analyze, interpret, and to communicate limnology data and results.

LakeWatch has over fifty clients in the US and Canada including the EPA (Lake Erie), Southern Nevada Water Authority (Lake Mead), and USGS (Crater Lake). The Lake Mead LakeWatch database is one of the largest limnology databases in the world.

LakeWatch has an advanced data assessment module, including biota data models, for ecological risk in addition to finding trends in biological and limnological data. As part of the purchase of LakeWatch, Dr. Burns will join EarthSoft's staff as a consultant for EarthSoft and EarthSoft clients. EarthSoft will sell and support the current LakeWatch software, while integrating LakeWatch data structures, reports, and statistics into EQuIS 5.

Dr. Burns invented the Burns' Trophic Level Index and has studied inland waters around the globe for over four decades. Educated in South Africa, England, and Canada, Dr. Burns led an international team at the Canada Centre for Inland Waters researching Lake Erie whose report led to a major remedial program being carried out by the Canadian and US Governments. He subsequently published a seminal work on Lake Erie.

After immigrating to New Zealand, Dr. Burns became Scientist-in-Charge at New Zealand's Water Quality Centre and was later awarded the Bronze Medal by the Royal Society of New Zealand for services to science. He produced the Protocol for the Monitoring of New Zealand Lakes and Reservoirs for the New Zealand Ministry for the Environment. His research led to a breakthrough scientific methodology for quantitatively assessing trophic level and its probability of change with time in a lake. This method has now been adopted for use by NZ Regional Councils and some lake managers in North America.

Said Dr. Burns, "I am excited for LakeWatch to be adopted by the leading environmental data management software company in the world. EarthSoft will take LakeWatch to the next level in the market and help us all to better monitor our lakes and reservoirs and care for their water quality and health."

LakeWatch is specifically designed to analyze data to enable early detection of changes in important variables and consequently, in the trophic level of lakes and reservoirs. Using LakeWatch, you can:

Display graphical profiles of limnology data.
Identify and quantify trends in any monitored variable.
Perform statistical analysis on any variable.
Accurately assess the conditions of water bodies against a Trophic Index Scheme.
Detect and quantify even small degrees of changes in trophic levels.
Determine the probability that the quality of a lake is changing.

EarthSoft Vice-President, Scot D. Weaver said, "We are thrilled to add LakeWatch to the EQuIS family. EarthSoft is responding to multiple client requests for better tools for lake and reservoir managers to easily utilize and share water quality data between clients and the public. This is an important extension to the EQuIS 5 product."

Dr. Jim LaBounty of Southern Nevada Water Authority and a longtime user of LakeWatch, commented, "LakeWatch is a key component of our program monitoring the water quality of Lake Mead. We have a huge amount of data, with more arriving every week. We look forward to working with EarthSoft and continuing our use of LakeWatch."

About EarthSoft: EarthSoft's EQuIS is the most widely used environmental data management system in the world. For more information write info@earthsoft.com, or visit www.earthsoft.com.

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