Photo By Cameron Porter | Personnel from the 405th Army Field Support Brigade headquarters toast to safe,...... read more read more
KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany – Inquiring minds want to know, and recently some inquiring minds at the 405th Army Field Support Brigade wanted to know how safe, potable, clear and tasty drinking water is provided to the residents of Kaiserslautern.
Lucky for them, the 405th AFSB labor advisor, Christine Schneider, organized a professional development site visit and a private tour of the SWK Haus des Wassers, or House of Water, in the Palatine Forest just south of the city.
Several teammates from the 405th AFSB headquarters visited the House of Water July 31, 2025, and were met there by Bauer Christoph, a project engineer with SWK. Christoph provided a detailed briefing of the facility and how it supports the greater community of Kaiserslautern to include Ramstein Air Base and several other U.S. installations in the Kaiserslautern Military Community to include Daenner Kaserne where the 405th AFSB is headquartered.
The value of water cannot be understated, but how it’s prepared, processed, filtered, tested and delivered often remains an unspoken mystery. For the team members from the 405th AFSB who were fortunate enough to tour the House of Water in Rote Hohl, or Red Hollow, their curiosities were fully quenched and all mysteries revealed.
Customers in and around Kaiserslautern consume about 7.5 to 8 million cubic meters of water each year, according to Christoph. That’s about 2.1 billion gallons annually. The House of Water is one of three waterworks facilities supporting these customers. In addition, there are also 15 reservoirs, 24 deep wells and one spring. When it comes to water storage, the House of Water provides 6,000 cubic meters of storage within a total storage space of 17,000 cubic meters spilt between the House of Water and 12 other locations.
“It’s not only about the amount of water or the demand from our customers. It’s about quality. That’s the most important thing and our main concern,” said Christoph to the group of visitors from the 405th AFSB. “Here, we collect nearly 1,000 data points, which are transferred electronically to our control center – water-related information like temperatures and PH values are constantly monitored and analyzed. If there’s a fault detected, the control center will receive an alarm, and immediate action will be taken.”
Being the senior facilities engineer for the 405th AFSB, Kevin Hovis said he was intrigued by the opportunity to visit Kaiserslautern’s House of Water when he heard a professional development tour of the facility was being organized. But what Hovis didn’t anticipate was how directly relatable some of the lessons learned from the tour would be to Army sustainment and support operations.
“It became highly apparent when we entered the filtration rooms and learned from our guide how important flushing the tanks and conducting preventative maintenance is to ensuring uninterrupted service and, in this case, clean water,” he said. “Replacing those huge filtration tanks would be a mammoth task. The roof of the facility would need to be removed, and cranes would be needed, or they’d have to cut the tanks out of there and build new ones.”
“It clearly demonstrated the critical importance of preventative maintenance and scheduled services. Just like those filtration tanks, our trucks and heavy equipment in Army Prepositioned Stock storage require this same level carefully planned, scheduled and executed maintenance. We can’t afford to not be ready to support our Soldiers the moment we’re called upon with fully mission capable, ready to issue APS equipment just like the city of Kaiserslautern can’t afford to not have safe, potable, clear and tasty drinking water 24/7,” said Hovis.
"It was really great for everyone. I'm glad we got to visit and see the Haus des Wassers. Now I know why Kaiserslautern has the best drinking water in Germany, maybe the world," said Schneider. "I'm planning more 405th AFSB professional development site visits and tours for the months ahead."
The 405th AFSB is the premier logistics integrator and synchronizer for U.S. European Command, enabling readiness solutions to ‘Support the Warrior’ by operationalizing U.S. Army Materiel Command (AMC) capabilities and delivering readiness within the U.S. Army Europe and Africa areas of responsibility at the points of need.
The 405th AFSB is assigned to U.S. Army Sustainment Command and provides materiel enterprise support to U.S. forces throughout Europe and Africa – providing theater sustainment logistics; synchronizing acquisition, logistics and technology; and leveraging AMC’s materiel enterprise to support joint forces. For more information on the 405th AFSB, visit the official website at www.afsbeurope.army.mil and the official Facebook site at www.facebook.com/405thAFSB.
| Date Taken: | 08.01.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 08.01.2025 04:09 |
| Story ID: | 544488 |
| Location: | KAISERSLAUTERN, RHEINLAND-PFALZ, DE |
| Web Views: | 31 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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