Another teaching moment for Iraqis, learning that preventive maintenance is necessary.

Sgt. Thomas Jeffrey Phillips, Navy Chief Petty Officer Edward M. Lubas and Bilingual Bicultural Engineering Advisor Majeed Al Tamimi stood, July 23, at the edge of an empty canal that disappeared into the horizon.

The team from the 364th Civil Affairs Brigade, Camp Victory, listened as the diesel back-up generator was fired up, popped, sputtered and then died.

After a few adjustments were made by Iraqi Civil Aviation Authority mechanics, the pumps were primed. Water progressed from a muddy trickle to a steady flow, bringing a satisfying end to the project that started back in April.

“It’s good to see they were able to pull everything together and get it working,” Phillips, a Gilbert, Ariz., native said.

“To see all that water barreling out and filling the canal was a pretty good feeling.”

More than two months ago Director General of ICAA, Sabeeh Al Shebany, expressed the increasing water levels beneath the runway were a priority for any assistance the 364th could provide said Lt. Col. Howard A. Schaffer, Beaverton, Ore.

“They said the water table beneath the Baghdad International Airport was too high and they thought there might be an issue on our side of the canal system (Victory Base Complex),” Schaffer, the 364th Civil Affairs Brigade economic development officer, said.

A series of pumps had been completed as a Command Emergency Relief Program in November of 2007 to ensure the water table beneath Baghdad International Airport did not compromise the integrity of runway.

The civil affairs team was concerned that those pump stations might be the problem. After a survey of the sites, Lubas, a native of Jacksonville, Fla., immediately saw the problem.

“The mechanical seals were bad, the control units were covered in dust that causes shorts, back-up diesel pumps were non-operational and there were some holes in the piping system causing a lack of pressure,” explained Lubas.

Despite the disarray of the equipment the team decided that with proper maintenance and a few repairs the pumps could be operational again.

“The first part was explaining to the Iraqis they didn’t need new equipment, they just need to replace a few parts and maintain what they had,” Phillips said.

In subsequent visits Lubas outlined steps for a maintenance program, coordinated with Iraqi engineers what repairs had to be done to get the pumps operational, and formed standard operating procedures.

“They were running the pumps in manual position and with a power grid so unstable once power went out the pumps would shut down and the pressure would bleed out and it wouldn’t turn on again.”

Part of the new SOP was to keep the pumps running automatically so they would stop when the water reached a certain level, but still keep water in the pipes to keep the system charged and ready to resume as the canals filled.

“I was astonished today how much work they have done to get to the pumps operational, and they did it on their own, with their own parts,” Lubas said during the last scheduled visit to the canals.

The water level at the first pump station had already decreased two feet and the water at the second pump station was flowing easily and smoothly. The BIAP canals merge with other canals until they reach the farms needing irrigation.

“They have been shown how it works, they got the parts and they got it working,” Majeed said.

“Whether or not they will keep maintaining and keeping it running is now up to them, we are finished with the project.”

DVIDS
Story by Staff Sgt. Luke Koladish

Soldiers eating at Coalition Dining Facility stop to deposit plastic bottles into one bin, aluminum cans into another and trash into a third before exiting the building. This three-step process, while seemingly inconsequential, has enabled service members to do their part in improving the local environment.

“Iraqis didn’t think anything of just throwing bottles and cans out of car windows,” said Doug Harger, director of central Iraq’s business development for First Iraqi Contracting Company. “It would rain and that stuff would wash into the sewer system and back up treatment plants.”

The bottles and cans that made it to trash dumps presented a major environmental problem as well.

Sonia Parker, budget analyst for 10th Mountain Division, said other methods of material disposal create health risks.

“Burning this stuff creates toxic fumes,” said Parker, who has family in Boston. “When it rains, that stuff that burned into the air comes right back down.”

Harger said education has been key in turning this problem around.

“Fifty percent of Iraq’s population is under the age of 20,” he said. “They have had to be taught to take better care of their environment for the sake of health and convenience of basic services.”

Today, many Iraqis have found employment opportunities because of this effort to clean up the environment and improve basic services, Harger said.

“Our recycling center here has around 40 Iraqi employees. Most of them fit that under-20 demographic.”

These workers have been collecting bottles and cans for a while now, but their work has recently expanded to include collection of cardboard and ink cartridges.

“We ran an experiment with collecting cardboard recently,” said Harger. “We started with the [post exchange] at Liberty, and in one week we collected over four metric tons of the stuff.”

Parker added that the reuse of ink cartridges will also help eliminate needless waste.

“The less we have in trash dumps the better,” said Parker. “Reusing ink cartridges will help a lot in this effort.”

Recycling is often viewed as an inconvenience — a nuisance that takes time and effort from things that matter. However, Soldiers who participate in the effort here are helping to improve the quality of life in this part of Iraq.

DVIDS
Story by Sgt. Frank Vaughn

Photo by Jerry Warner, Defense Life Sciences

The 90 day trial has been completed. No word on the results yeat.

Getting rid of garbage is a problem anywhere, but particularly at forward operating bases in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Pair that with the constant need for fuel and the push for alternative energy sources, and you have the stuff of science fiction – the Tactical Garbage to Energy Refinery, or TGER, which is already turning trash into energy at Camp Victory, Iraq.

Dr. James Valdes, scientific advisor for biotechnology with the U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command, participated in a blogger’s roundtable Tuesday to discuss how TGER works and how it could be used in the future.

Valdes and his fellow scientists at RDECOM recently sent two prototypes of the TGER to Camp Victory to put these energy-generating trash disposers to the test.

“Our initial idea was that we could generate fuel in theater,” said Valdes. He said fuel has historically been the top “logistical nightmare” for a deployed army.

Seeing an opportunity to use biotechnology to solve a real Army problem set Valdes and his team on the path toward creating a machine that could provide the energy to power the generators and stoves that make up about half of the fuel consumption at most forward operating bases, according to Valdes.

“We’ve got a lot of garbage at various operating bases, and it’s got to go someplace,” said Valdes. “So our logic was that at a forward operating base, could we use the garbage to make fuel and thereby get rid of the garbage and help to keep the convoys off the streets? And so that’s how TGER got started.”

TGER is small enough to fit into a CONEX container, but powerful enough to power a standard 60-kilowatt generator. TGER works by turning the solid trash into fuel pellets which are fed into a down-draft gasifier. The gasifier then heats the pellets, and breaks them down into a synthetic gas composed of simple hydrocarbons that resembles low-grade propane. TGER processes the liquid and food waste into a hydrous ethanol which is blended with the syngas to create usable energy.

It takes TGER just six hours to fully power up, during which time the amount of diesel fed into the machine slowly drops, until the generator is powered by less than one gallon of fuel per hour, as compared to five per hour without TGER.

“And as one might think, the sort of waste stream that goes into TGER is a mixed waste stream: it’s paper; it’s plastics; it’s ammunition papers; it’s food-slop garbage. And so getting a really high-quality fuel source out is kind of a problem,” Valdes said. “So we decided instead to design a system that would convert the trash into electrical power.

The 90-day test at Camp Victory will help determine future applications for TGER. With temperatures soaring toward 112 degrees and limited infrastructure at the base, it’s a formidable testing environment.

“Once we’re through with this 90-day testing time, we have to analyze those data, and then we’ll do a clean-sheet engineering design,” Valdes said.

One of the potential applications Valdes already sees is the potential for TGER to be used in post-Katrina-type scenarios, where energy is scarce but trash is readily available.

US Army
BY Lindy Kyzer

Water is a critical resource in the desert, and the water level at Camp Victory here has decreased significantly over the past few months, the result of an unseasonably dry winter that saw very little rain.

The water levels in Al Faw Lake and Slayer Lake dropped below the preferable lower limit in the spring. But with 926th Engineer Brigade assisting in repairs to water pumps at the Jaddriyah Pump Station, the water levels in the two lakes have stabilized.

The repaired station has helped Iraqis in three ways, the brigade’s deputy commander noted. “It has created jobs, rebuilt the existing infrastructure, and helped improve irrigation,” Army Col. Philip Jolly said.

The water levels on Camp Victory fall under the purview of the Department of Public Works and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, but since the Jaddriyah Pump Station falls within the Multinational Division Baghdad operational environment, 4th Infantry Division assigned repair responsibility to 926th Engineer Brigade, Jolly explained.

The Jaddriyah Pump Station also supplies water to the Radwaniyah area in southern Baghdad. The 4th Infantry Division and 926th Engineer Brigade are repairing it to improve the quality of life for the Iraqi people who live in the areas it feeds. With additional pumps working, more water can be supplied to the Iraqis living in the Radwaniyah district.

“They have already seen improvements, as more water is flowing through the water treatment units in the area,” said Army Maj. James Daffron.

As the water flow increases in the lakes, excess water will flow to the canals for the Iraqi people in the surrounding area. About 1,000 local farms will get the much-needed water, which will provide a boost to the local agriculture industry and additional food and employment opportunities to the residents of Radwaniyah.

Before the 926th started working with operators at the pump station, only two of 10 pumps were working. The station is designed to work with six large pumps in operation at one time, pumping 16,000 gallons per minute. The station has eight large pumps and two small pumps, and the two large pumps that were working prior to the brigade’s involvement were not always working at full capacity. Due to faulty and outdated equipment, workers often needed to shut down the station for repairs.

Now, seven out of eight large pumps are in operation, and work is in progress to improve the overall efficiency of the station. Also, a 28-week training course will teach Iraqi citizens how to operate and maintain the plant and improve the efficiency of operations.

“This would give them usable skills that would keep them employed and away from insurgent militias,” Daffron said.

DoD
By Army Spc. Anthony Hutchins
(Army Spc. Anthony Hutchins serves with Multinational Division Baghdad in the 926th Engineer Brigade Public Affairs Office.)
Special to American Forces Press Service