Photo By Senior Airman Tyrique Barquet | U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Ronald Collins and Airman 1st Class Caleb Foster, 31st...... read more read more
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AVIANO AIR BASE, Italy — Airmen from the 31st Civil Engineer Squadron have been hard at work restoring and safeguarding water systems across Aviano Air Base, Italy, following recent outages. Their ingenuity ensures fire protection capability, mission readiness and safe drinking water across the entire installation.
As part of the 31st CES, the Water and Fuel Systems Maintenance Team is trained to maintain and repair Aviano AB's water distribution systems to keep safe water flowing continuously throughout the base.
“Whenever an outage occurs, restoring firefighting capabilities is always the number one priority, especially near aircraft hangars,” stated U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Ronald Collins, 31st CES WFSM specialist. "Without these timely repairs, our fighters would not have functioning hydrants.”
Locating a leak requires precision and skill, since water on the surface doesn’t always indicate the exact location of the break underground. Soil conditions, pressure, and underground pathways cause water to travel away from the source before appearing at the surface.
Airmen may begin digging in one location and have to expand the excavation as they trace the leak through the system, sometimes creating trenches dozens of feet long before identifying the exact point of failure.
"It’s a lot of hard work," said Collins. "But we work as a team and get it done, no matter what."
Water outages can happen for many reasons, to include aging infrastructure, severe weather conditions or even chemical contaminations.Through their training and dedication, the WFSM Team and the BE Flight remain ready to respond, enabling Aviano Air Base to continuously support two critical components of its operation: mission readiness and quality of life for its residents.
"I like to think we're the heart of Aviano,” said Collins. “Engineers lead the way!"
| Date Taken: | 04.20.2026 |
| Date Posted: | 04.21.2026 09:00 |
| Story ID: | 563207 |
| Location: | IT |
| Web Views: | 23 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Engineers lead the way: 31st CES restores water, protects Aviano’s mission, by SrA Tyrique Barquet, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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