LWPS: Water, Water, Anywhere for the USMC
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You can live for weeks without food. A week without water will leave you dead, especially if you’re exerting yourself in unfriendly conditions. More bad news: water is heavy to carry, which means it takes a lot of resources to transport. There are all kinds of very clever single-soldier solutions for purifying water, but bases and outposts will need options that can scale and produce a steady supply. The US Marines are looking for expeditionary solutions, and TerraGroup’s TECWAR will be selling them some.
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Nov 18/13: TerraGroup Corp. in Allentown, PA receives a $49.9 million firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/ indefinite-quantity contract for their Lightweight Water Purification System (LWPS). The initial $15 million delivery order (#0001) buys LWPS and enhanced pump modules using FY 2013 procurement finds, and delivery is expected to be complete by January 2015. This contract was competitively awarded via FBO.gov, with 3 offers received. US Marine Corps Systems Command in Quantico, VA manages this contract, on behalf of the USMC’s Product manager, expeditionary power systems and Program manager, combat support systems (M67854-14-D-5001).
The LWPS is a lightweight water purification system used to produce potable water from water sources such as rivers, lakes, wells, and oceans for Marines operating in austere environments. It includes generators, pumping, and reverse osmosis hyper-filtration for use by highly mobile teams in remote areas or emergency and temporary site. The entire system can load on a HMMWV utility variant.
LWPS flow rates are given as 2.5 Gal./ 9.5L per minute, or 150 US Gal./ 586L per hour. It can be operated and maintained by 1 operator, and general maintenance and repairs require no special tools as long as parts are present. System options include an Ocean Intake Structure System (OISS), Cold Weather Module (CWK), modules for Nuclear/ Biological/ Chemical contaminated environments; and an Increased Production Module (IPM) for really dirty sources.
