CE Airmen improve life on remote Army outpost

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Scott Saldukas
  • 451st Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs
COMBAT OUTPOST AZIMIJAN KARIZ, Afghanistan (AFNS) --  A small team of deployed civil engineer Airmen traveled to a remote Army outpost to provide much needed infrastructure improvements.

The 577th Expeditionary Prime Base Engineer Emergency Force Squadron Consolidated-Small Maintenance and Repair Team visited here April 29 through May 3 to improve life, health and safety areas around the compound.

The C-SMART, made up of six people from different civil engineer specialties, recently made their second of two visits to COP AJK. During the visit, they repaired a sewage line, fixed an electrical box that runs a well and pump, and checked for any other issues potentially hazardous to the residents on the compound.

"This visit was a follow-up to an initial inspection done a few months ago, which was requested by the COP mayor," said Tech. Sgt. Chris Mason, 577th EPBS C-SMART team lead. "The main project was running about 200 feet of new piping for shower drains and a sewage line."

Mason explained how the previous pipeline was severely damaged and causing the sewage water to pool up near a showering area.

"It was real bad when we first got here," Staff Sgt. Alexis Lopez, 577th EPBS C-SMART water and fuels system maintenance craftsman. "Aside from it looking cosmetically bad and having a bad odor, the water was housing frogs, which can attract snakes as well as attract mosquitos and run the risk of someone contracting malaria."

The second project was a fairly simple fix Lopez said, but needed to be done for the safety of the Soldiers here.

"The electrical box that powered their water well was going to be replaced, but just needed to be rewired so that the switch on the outside of the box will turn the pump on and off," he said. "When we got here, they needed to go inside the box and do it manually and even that wasn't working for them. That could have been catastrophic if someone was electrocuted with the 460 volts the box was pushing."

There are two C-SMARTs stationed at Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan. Each team consists of a plumbing, electrical, heating, ventilation and air conditioning, structural and power pro specialist. The teams are comprised of highly trained civil engineers, who travel throughout Afghanistan to some of the most unforgiving areas. Their mission is to support compounds that do not have the resources to accomplish what the Prime BEEF squadron can offer.

"All of us are familiar with the austere conditions and the challenges that come with them," Mason said, who is deployed from the 28th Civil Engineer Squadron at Ellsworth Air Force Base, S.D. "Regardless of where we are, we fix everything the correct way, up to code, so it can last long term."

Lopez, who is deployed from the 633rd CES at Langley AFB, Va., noted that deployments like this are extremely rewarding because of the impact each mission has.

"We are taking care of our people and giving them better living conditions than they had before we got there," Lopez said, who hails from Brooklyn, N.Y. "It also shows the other services and coalition forces that the Air Force is here and contributing to the fight."