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| Afghanistan | |
| Eau de Camp Bastion: Army experts find water in the desert | |
| 2009-09-06 | |
| It looks like a typical spring water bottling plant -- in the Scottish Highlands perhaps, or maybe the French Alps. But this factory, processing more than 15,000 gallons a day, is in a somewhat more unusual location: the middle of the Afghan desert. Pumping water from boreholes sunk deep below the parched ground of Camp Bastion, this is the Army's first-ever bottling plant. It produces enough water to supply all 14,000 troops stationed there and experts say the quality is as good as any expensive mineral water you can buy in Britain. The facility was built after a series of Taliban attacks on the supply lines bringing drinking water from Pakistan and the Middle East to the camp in Helmand province.
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| Posted by: |
| #6 who've prolly never seen clean potable water before |
| Posted by: Frank G 2009-09-06 20:44 |
| #5 37.5 times 8 pints a gallon is 300 bottles created filled and capped per person Not super, but remember these are unskilled workers. |
| Posted by: Redneck Jim 2009-09-06 20:41 |
| #4 TW, all I'm saying is it works out to 37.5 gallons per day per employee. It doesn't seem right. |
| Posted by: Penguin 2009-09-06 19:14 |
| #3 It probably isn't the highest of high tech, Penguin, although I'm not qualified to comment about such things. Also, they have to make the bottles as well as fill them. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2009-09-06 12:57 |
| #2 US Army contractors drilled water wells all over COB Speicher a couple of years ago. They only went down about 120m. Excellent water it was too. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2009-09-06 12:19 |
| #1 "American contractor KBR provides the 400 mainly Nepalese and Sri Lankan staff who work at the plant, lured to Afghanistan by relatively high wages." This can't be correct. 400 workers for a 15K gallon/day plant? |
| Posted by: Penguin 2009-09-06 11:42 |