Water Treatment Facility Provides Quality Hydration

By Pfc. Samantha Schutz

CAMP LIBERTY, Iraq - The human body is more than 60 percent water, and an average person can only live a week or so without drinking water. As the desert weather heats up, Multi-National Division - Baghdad Soldiers will inevitably need to keep drinking plenty of water to avoid dehydration.

Luckily, the Camp Liberty Oasis International Waters' water treatment facility has been working 24 hours a day since the summer of 2005 to provide a continuous flow of purified bottled water to the thirsty troops.

In fact, there are 420,000 bottles of water produced at the facility each day, said Bruce Everson, a native of Townsville, Queensland, Australia, who serves as the general manager of Camp Liberty's site.

Before the liquid is allowed to leave though, it must pass through a rigorous process to ensure it meets federal and military standards.

Bruce Everson, a native of Townsville, Queensland, Australia, holds a bottle of freshly purified and bottled water at the Camp Liberty Oasis International Waters' water treatment facility March 12. Everson, who serves as the facility's general manager, explained that the process of purifying the water has many tiers, including reverse osmosis and carbon filtration. (U.S. Army photo by Pfc. Samantha Schutz, MND-B PAO)

"Our water is probably more processed than (brand-name bottled waters in the United States) because of the military's standard," Everson said.

The process of making water from Camp Liberty's Z Lake consists of many precise steps, said Everson.

First, the water is pumped into a machine in the facility, where it is treated with chlorine to kill any living organisms. Then it undergoes reverse osmosis, a process that uses pressure to separate out impurities.

The water also passes through a carbon filter, which uses carbon particles with a positive charge to pull negatively charged, impure particles from the water, then through an ultraviolet light filter, which works to disable the reproductive processes of any remaining microscopic organisms.

Bruce Everson, a native of Townsville, Queensland, Australia, who serves as the general manager of the Camp Liberty Oasis International Waters' water treatment facility, explains how plastic, one-liter water bottles are stored March 12 after being made at the facility. The indoor silo the bottles are kept in can store approximately 70,000 bottles. (U.S. Army photo by Pfc. Samantha Schutz, MND-B PAO)

Finally, the water is moved to a sterilized contact tank and infused with ozone, which removes anything which may have survived the previous filters and also removes any odors. The ozone dissipates into the water after two to four hours, leaving behind nothing but pure drinking water.

The water is tested every two hours throughout the process to keep its pH levels - a measure of how acidic or alkaline a liquid is - balanced, said Everson.

The one-liter bottles used to contain the water are also made within the facility.

Tiny beads of plastic resin are inserted into one of two special machine where they are melted and blown into a bottle. Combined, the two machines have produced nearly 250 million bottles since the facility began production in May 2005, Everson said.

After the bottles are filled and sealed, a special laser inscribes the water's date of production and the code for which water purification system produced it. If the bottle of water comes from Camp Liberty, its code will is WPS-06.

The code on the bottle is a way for the company's quality assurance department to track complaints, although most people have only good things to say about the product, said Everson.

"Nothing gets released until it meets all the standards," Everson added. "Our water is quality; I have no worries about that."

An employee of the Camp Liberty Oasis International Waters' water treatment facility uses an air hose to clean debris from a machine at the facility March 12. The machine uses resin to create the one-liter plastic bottles used to package the water, and regular cleaning of the machine is necessary to prevent melted resin from backing up. (U.S. Army photo by Pfc. Samantha Schutz, MND-B PAO)

Cpl. Luis Perez, a native of Bronx, N.Y., said the bottled water he drank while he was deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom II was often old and stale-tasting.

"I think (the water) was from a Kuwaiti company," explained Perez. "(Oasis bottled water) is a lot better than it was before - it's new and fresh."

Perez serves as an automated logistical specialist with the 62nd Quartermaster Company, 68th Combat Service Support Battalion, which supports the 4th Infantry Division and Multi-National Division - Baghdad. His job at the Oasis facility is to coordinate with military and civilian representatives to arrange for water to be transported wherever it's needed.

Currently, 181 customers have accounts with the facility. Approximately 500 palettes of water leave the facility for destinations all across the MND-B area of operations, Perez said.

"Around 50 percent of the water we issue stays around the (Victory Base Complex) area," added Perez.

If the unit doesn't have its own truck to transport the heavy palettes, the 68th CSB provides the transportation. Trucks come in and out of the facility 24 hours a day to deliver fresh water to places as far as Camp Taji and Camp Rustamiyah, Perez said.

The parent company of Oasis, Al-Morrell Development in Salt Lake City, Utah, has long been committed to helping those who serve their country, Everson said. During the Hurricane Katrina disaster in 2005, the company was there to help.

Everyone from Soldiers to disaster victims needs water to survive. The Camp Liberty water treatment facility and its employees are committed to upholding the standard of providing clean, fresh water to those in need.

judythpiazza@newsblaze.com

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