Various organizations exist, such as power and water Information Sharing and Analysis Centers, to facilitate better protection against threats. “Cyber is now a key component, of contingency planning, along with natural hazards and terrorism.” “All water utilities our size have to do a cyber-assessment along with a vulnerability assessment, the results of which are included in our emergency response plan,” said Burchfield. Key resources and infrastructure, such as water and power, are vital to every day Americans and the stability and security of the nation. Security is key to reliability, both physically and virtually. 03 micron sized contaminants from water at Fort Benning Water Resource Facility, Dec. 03 micron sized impurities from water at Fort Benning Water Resource Facility, Dec. Large water pumps feed membrane filtration assemblies that remove. This additional output capability, and interconnections with the Columbus distribution network, combine to create an overall system with enough redundancy to be highly resilient and reliable over time. The plant is capable and permitted to clean 12 million gallons of water a day and usually produces between two and three. “The operators there can see up there, what’s going on down here, the same way we can see up there.” “We have interconnects from Columbus that flow into the Fort Benning distribution system,” said Burchfield. The computer system has redundancy too, from its sister systems at the Columbus treatment plant. “Every plant, every pump, every tank, you can see everything from right here.” “We can control the entire operation from this one computer system,” explained Smith. The old treatment plant drew from Upatoi Creek, water now comes from Chattahoochee River, increasing flow available to the plant. One of the three intake pumps can feed the membrane filtration assemblies and one of the three generators can power key systems in the event of a power outage. The military need for readiness can been seen in the machinery, systems, and practices in place to keep clean water flowing regardless of external forces. Redundancy and reliability are key components in the plants design and reflective of the close partnership between Fort Benning and CWW. Water quality tests are conducted hourly at the Fort Benning Water Resource Facility to ensure safety and quality of the water distributed to the Benning population, Dec. Cole III) VIEW ORIGINAL 2 / 2 Show Caption + Hide Caption – The plant’s treatment-on-demand model of operation, coupled with testing, provides the plant quick reaction and recovery capabilities if any issue was to ever arise.Ĭhris Hill, Columbus Water Works lead water technician, collects a water sample at a sampling station on Fort Benning, Jan. “Constant monitoring and hourly testing allows us to detect any possible issues quickly and the time to adjust before a problem can form,” added Smith. It was designed and built to meet the demands of the installation now and in the future. Water flowing through the Fort Benning system goes from intake to distribution in about eight hours. “We have over 110K tests we do every year, not only through our operators at the plants themselves, but from our consolidated laboratory, located in Columbus, where we test the whole system,” said Burchfield. Water quality testing is an ongoing mission for CWW, it happens hourly within the treatment plant and daily across Fort Benning at various sampling stations approved by the Georgia Environmental Protection Division, the state’s version of the federal Environmental Protection Agency. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL 2 / 2 Show Caption + Hide Caption – “One of the additional advantages of membrane filtration is, because it is a cleaner filtering system, we use less chemicals after filtering than a conventional plant,” added Burchfield. 03 micron is very small, smaller even than small bacteria which are about 5 microns. To help put the filters’ capability into perspective, the smallest things visible to the naked eye are about 40-50 microns in size and the human hair is about 70 microns across. “Filtering at that level makes it easy for us to exceed our partnership goals for clean water,” said Louis Smith, CWW Assistant Superintendent. 03 micron-sized pores in the walls of a “fiber” tube, leaving trapped contaminants behind and purifying the water. Inside the membrane filtration assemblies, water passes through. “One of the things that makes our plant unique is that we are a membrane filtration plant, one of four in the state of Georgia,” explains Vic Burchfield, Senior Vice President, Columbus Water Works. Since operations began in September 2012, the Fort Benning Water Resource Facility has provided clean, safe drinking water to the Benning population by employing tiny technology to produce huge capability and capacity.
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