Public Health Command Europe works closely with Polish Ministry of Health, Ministry of National Defense

Swietoszów, Poland — At the request of U.S. European Command, U.S. Army Public Health Command Europe Environmental Engineers attended the first Combined Drinking Water Summit for the U.S. Department of Defense with the Polish Ministry of Health and Ministry of National Defense from 09 to 11 July.

The U.S. European Command J-4 Logistics Support and Infrastructure Program Office organized the summit to bring together all key players in water safety and defense to increase knowledge and shared understanding between the U.S. and Poland in order to achieve water quality that meets the required final governing standards for U.S. Military personnel working and living in Poland. EUCOM requested PHCE attend to provide subject matter expertise and training on U.S. standards to their Polish counterparts.

“While both countries end goal is to provide safe and suitable drinking water for their Soldiers, the testing procedures in the U.S. and Poland are different,” said Hugh Bailey, PHCE Environmental Engineer. “In the U.S., we test the entire system and different steps along the way but in Poland the primary concern is testing and examination of the finished product, the water that comes out of the faucet.”

The final governing standards are specific to each country and may have requirements that the end user in each country does not normally deal with so it is important that each involved party understands the different requirements.

“We discussed both Polish Government Standards and US Final Governing Standards for water quality, treatment, the management of installation distribution systems, and monitoring and we compared the standards and requirements between the two systems,” said Bailey. “The Polish presented their laboratory capabilities and public health requirements which ultimately will help us come to an agreement for the way forward.”

PHCE engineers trained participants on technical processes concerning drinking water treatment, spotlighting a production plant and garrison at Swietoszów which will serve as a “test case and will set the example for execution of future sampling events”, according to Bailey.

The in-person summit was critical to identify key players, establish relationships and lay the foundation for future dialogues using online platforms.