Post by Anonymous Vet on Dec 2, 2003 8:53:15 GMT -5
Engineers in the purification business.
By SP4 Ron Nisetich USA Engineer Troops
LONG BINH, (ENGR) - For the man in the field it's a simple matter - just drop a couple of iodine tablets into the canteen and the water is ready to drink. But ever wonder about the water you drink, or take showers with, back at the basecamp?
The job of making sure you have plenty of safe water goes to crews of Army engineers scattered all over Vietnam.
Take Rach Kien, for instance. The basecamp there is located 15 miles southeast of Saigon and has relatively moderate water demands compared to other places. But instead of the iodine tablets, there is a three-man water purification detachment and a medic monitoring a purification unit called an erdalator.
The erdalator changes the smell and color of raw (untreated) water with chemicals and kills bacteria with chlorine. Erdalators come in various sizes, according to the water demand of the- area they serve.
It is estimated that while the soldier In the field on patrol requires three or four gallons of water per day, the soldier in Pleiku needs from 25 to 50 gallons, and the soldier at Long Binh, from 50 to 100 gallons. At bigger basecamps, of course, all that water is not going for personal use. Fighting fires and cleaning dishes consume many gallons.
All purification detachments in Vietnam come under the control of the United States Army Engineer Construction Agency. At larger bases such as Da Nang, Cam Ranh Bay, Pleiku, Long Binh and Can Tho, several purification detachments are required to keep huge erdalators - better described as water purification plants._ disgourging thousands of gallons a -day.
Da Nang's erdalator, for instance, can turn out 3,000 gallons of potable water every hour. During its purification cycle, water flows from the source to two 25-feet high cones where chemicals, along with sand and limestone, cause the heavy particles to coagulate and settle below. With the most harmful elements removed, the water passes into two equally huge filters that remove finer particles and add the chlorine.
That, of course, is the way it works under ideal conditions but conditions in Vietnam are never ideal. At Can Tho, Cpl. Arthur Vincent describes what it was like operating a water plant during Tel. For three days and nights he and Pfc. Leonard Cornelious worked the plant while the remaining five of Vincent's men were pinned down by Viet Cong snipers at the hotel where they all live.
"Sure it was bad," Vincent said. "The two of us had to haul about 800 pounds of chemicals up these stairs during the day. That can get to be tiring."
But as Vincent is the first to admit, the hard work and the taste left by these pounds of chlorine is better than dysentery or hepatitis, which would probably be more widespread among American forces were it not for the engineers in the purification business.
The Army Reporter
By SP4 Ron Nisetich USA Engineer Troops
LONG BINH, (ENGR) - For the man in the field it's a simple matter - just drop a couple of iodine tablets into the canteen and the water is ready to drink. But ever wonder about the water you drink, or take showers with, back at the basecamp?
The job of making sure you have plenty of safe water goes to crews of Army engineers scattered all over Vietnam.
Take Rach Kien, for instance. The basecamp there is located 15 miles southeast of Saigon and has relatively moderate water demands compared to other places. But instead of the iodine tablets, there is a three-man water purification detachment and a medic monitoring a purification unit called an erdalator.
The erdalator changes the smell and color of raw (untreated) water with chemicals and kills bacteria with chlorine. Erdalators come in various sizes, according to the water demand of the- area they serve.
It is estimated that while the soldier In the field on patrol requires three or four gallons of water per day, the soldier in Pleiku needs from 25 to 50 gallons, and the soldier at Long Binh, from 50 to 100 gallons. At bigger basecamps, of course, all that water is not going for personal use. Fighting fires and cleaning dishes consume many gallons.
All purification detachments in Vietnam come under the control of the United States Army Engineer Construction Agency. At larger bases such as Da Nang, Cam Ranh Bay, Pleiku, Long Binh and Can Tho, several purification detachments are required to keep huge erdalators - better described as water purification plants._ disgourging thousands of gallons a -day.
Da Nang's erdalator, for instance, can turn out 3,000 gallons of potable water every hour. During its purification cycle, water flows from the source to two 25-feet high cones where chemicals, along with sand and limestone, cause the heavy particles to coagulate and settle below. With the most harmful elements removed, the water passes into two equally huge filters that remove finer particles and add the chlorine.
That, of course, is the way it works under ideal conditions but conditions in Vietnam are never ideal. At Can Tho, Cpl. Arthur Vincent describes what it was like operating a water plant during Tel. For three days and nights he and Pfc. Leonard Cornelious worked the plant while the remaining five of Vincent's men were pinned down by Viet Cong snipers at the hotel where they all live.
"Sure it was bad," Vincent said. "The two of us had to haul about 800 pounds of chemicals up these stairs during the day. That can get to be tiring."
But as Vincent is the first to admit, the hard work and the taste left by these pounds of chlorine is better than dysentery or hepatitis, which would probably be more widespread among American forces were it not for the engineers in the purification business.
The Army Reporter