40 million bottles quench Bastion thirst 30.11.11
6Camp Bastion's bottling plant has just celebrated a remarkable milestone -- or should that be watermark -- by filling their forty-millionth bottle. The first of its kind, since February 2008 the drinking water purification works has notched up enough production to fill four Olympic-size swimming pools. Staff from KBR, who operate Ministry of Defence-owned complex paused briefly to toast success -- in their own product. Manager Colin Howell said: "We had a very small celebration. We got the teams off the line; I took some photographs. Then they went straight back to work again. So there wasn't any significant loss of production." Hard to imagine, but the massive desert base sits above an unlimited underground lake, constantly topped up by rain runoff from distant mountains. The water is pumped up 150 metres to the plant where it is carbon filtered, chlorinated and sampled for pesticides and other impurities every twenty minutes. Staff are proud to have achieved uninterrupted supply since day one. "When you come from a European environment, where clean water comes out of the tap, then you take it for granted, but here it's a matter of life or death," explained Howell, a former RN Lieutenant Commander. Everything is carefully planned. The bottles, moulded in the factory, are square to prevent them rolling in vehicles and aircraft, and made especially strong to withstand air drops. Distinctively labelled "Drinking Water- Bottled in Camp Bastion" bottles have even appeared on eBay. Totally against the rules, says Howell. "It's a natural resource, belonging to the Government of Afghanistan. Neither the MOD or anyone else is allowed to sell it." The statistics of 20-hour-a-day production are themselves eye-watering. It has taken 15,000 miles of strapping to pack the bottles -- the same distance as UK to the Falkland Islands and back. The 3,000 miles of plastic sheeting encasing each pallet would stretch from London to Kabul. Self-contained drinking water supply is not only more secure but has saved an estimated 7,000 truck journeys.