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Air Guard team provides clean water for storm stricken Arkansas town

  • Published
  • By Air Force Maj. Keith Moore
  • Arkansas National Guard
A team of five Airmen of the 188th Fighter Wing's Civil Engineering Squadron from the Arkansas Air National Guard deployed two water purification units and power generators to restore clean water to this small Southwest Arkansas community following a tornado that destroyed the town's water treatment plant on Thursday, April 9.

The water treatment units known as Reverse Osmosis Water Purification Units (ROWPU) can take water from any surface source and filter it to absolute purity for use as drinking water. The systems can move approximately 1,200 gallons per hour to support the community's 1,230 residents daily needs.

Dierks City Engineer Jeremy Stone said, "On a normal day (before the storm) our system would provide 350 gallons per minute. The Guard's system doesn't move water at that rate, but we have been using only bottled water since the storm, so this will at least restore normal flow and pressure to our town."

Dierks Mayor Terry Mounts praised the professionalism and efficiency of the Guardsmen. "They got here and set right to work. They said it would be several hours to get set up and start filtering water, but they got water moving and tested in just under one hour. The City of Dierks is just glad the Arkansas Air Guard has this capability to support our residents."

Stone said the tornado destroyed the second floor control center of the towns water treatment facility removing its chlorination system and leaving it without electricity to power the pumps which bring water to nearby Lake Dierks.

Master Sgt. Kevin Rice, a utilities systems management specialist with the 188th Fighter Wing's Civil Engineer Squadron said the team practices utilizing the ROWPU system to support its regional training site at it's Fort Smith base, but this is the first time the units had been deployed to support a civilian community whose water utilities were down.

"We've utilized these units overseas, and we use them in practice to support our `bare base' training at home station, but this really makes us feel good when we can utilize the equipment to support a local community," said Rice.

Mayor Mounts said the city is requesting aid from state and federal agencies to help get the main plant back on line as quickly as possible, but had no idea how long the Guard may be needed to support the town with clean water.