City officials ask Misawa Air Base to help in drought

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City officials ask Misawa Air Base to help in drought
By T.D. Flack, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Friday, February 27, 2009

MISAWA AIR BASE, Japan — Misawa city officials want the U.S. military’s help in case they suffer a water supply failure like the one that left nearly 240,000 off-base residents in nearby towns dry in January.

Mayor Kazumasa Taneichi made the request to 35th Fighter Wing commander Col. David Stilwell during an annual community relations advisory council meeting Wednesday at the Misawa International Center.

Stilwell told Taneichi and other city representatives he wanted to arrange additional meetings to have the "experts" see what assistance the base could provide from its own internal water system.

One challenge, Stilwell predicted, would be figuring out how to link the base and city systems. He also warned that while the base had some "excess capacity," it couldn’t completely support local communities in the event of a full water loss. He also added that January’s situation affected Japanese base employees and Americans who were living in shortage areas.

Officials with the Hachinohe Regional Water Supply Corp. said Wednesday that the Jan. 1-6 water outage was caused by a crack in a nearly 4-foot diameter pipe that pulls water from the Mabechi River to a water purification plant. It affected more than 92,000 households in six towns and one city, but not Misawa city.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=60995