RAPID CITY, S.D., - With nearly 2,200 service members in need of clean water for two weeks, it takes only seven Soldiers to accomplish the mission.
Members of South Dakota’s Army National Guard Company A, 139th Brigade Support Battalion produced potable water from Rapid Creek, near the Central States Fairgrounds here on June 13.
The water will be distributed to three forward operating bases throughout the Black Hills of South Dakota during the state’s 26th annual Golden Coyote training exercise.
Staff Sgt. Chad Steiner, the non-commissioned officer-in-charge of Company A, knows how vital his unit is to Golden Coyote.
“We are providing all of the water to sustain the troops whether it’s for drinking, showering or cooking purposes,” said Steiner. “Without water you can’t function.”
All the potable water used for this year’s Golden Coyote, exercise is slated to be using a Tactical Water Purification System he said, this system uses state-of-the-art, micro-filtration technology to filter out silt and biological materials, with the ability to purify 25-gallons of water per minute, Steiner explained.
To accomplish this, water is drawn from a reliable source, such as a creek, then sent through a raw feed tank. From there, it goes through a filtration system and then a Reverse Osmosis system, he said.
“Once the RO is complete, sodium hypochlorite is added to the water to kill the bacteria,” said Steiner.
Finally, the purification team stores the water in several 3,000-gallon water storage units, commonly referred to as onion skins, he said, as well as a 6,500-gallon and a 10,000-gallon tank.
“We check the chemicals in the water every hour and make the needed adjustments,” said Steiner. “It’s a busy operation with a standard 20-hour production time with four hours spent on maintaining the equipment.”
After the water is purified it needs to get to the troops - that’s where the unit’s truck drivers of Detachment 2 get involved. This platoon delivers the clean water to the troops in 2,000-gallon portable water systems known as “Hippos.”
While this may seem like a great deal of work, the seven water purification Soldiers of Co. A. know what is at stake.
“There is a lot of pressure to do our job right the first time,” said Sgt. Joseph Meyer, one of these specialists. “There is no room for error when troops are drinking the water.”