USAG Bavaria on 12 August 2026 held a Hebefest, or topping-out ceremony, at Hohenfels, Germany, marking the placement of the roof on a new building at the garrison's sewage treatment site, according to a report published 27 August 2026 on Army.mil. Members of the Directorate of Public Works, garrison staff, community partners and contractors gathered as a construction crane held a large green crown above the newly completed roof.
Key takeaways
- A topping-out ceremony was held on 12 August 2026 at the Hohenfels sewage treatment site, per Army.mil.
- The Directorate of Public Works is delivering a full repair of the sewage treatment plant while it remains in full operation, per Army.mil.
- Redundant basins and pumps allow one unit to be taken offline while the other continues treating flow, per Army.mil.
- Wastewater assets in particular need larger repair work now and smaller repairs every 15 years, per Army.mil.
- The new building will serve as the operations and personnel facility, with lockers, restrooms and showers, per Army.mil.
What happened
The Directorate of Public Works is performing a full repair of the sewage treatment plant at Hohenfels, "accomplishing the renovation while the plant is in full operation," according to Army.mil. The garrison chose live operation over the easier path of a full shutdown because the post is in full training mode and "Hohenfels will not stand still for two years or three years," said Claudia Rabhansl, the lead for the construction project, per Army.mil.
The post relies on redundancy to keep treating wastewater through the works. "We have the advantage that the essential things are redundant," Rabhansl said. "We can switch off one basin and have a second one, and we can switch off one pump and have a second one," per Army.mil. That dual-train layout is what makes a live refurbishment feasible without bypassing the plant.
Rabhansl framed the refurbishment tempo as a function of the chemistry of the process. "To clean the water, you have bacteria do their job. The wastewater itself is super aggressive, so the lifespan of everything that comes into touch with the wastewater and the process of cleaning the water is way shorter than for a normal building. So the basins, they need smaller repair work every 15 years and larger repair work now," per Army.mil. The new building, once complete, will house operations and personnel functions, including lockers, restrooms and showers, and the Directorate of Public Works will then turn to the remaining buildings on the site, per Army.mil.
Specification read
No flow rate, population equivalent, BOD or COD figure was reported in Army.mil, so the scale of the Hohenfels plant is not stated in this article. As a class reference for garrison and small municipal works in Germany, biological plants in this band typically sit in the low thousands of population equivalent, with raw wastewater BOD in the 200 to 400 mg/L range and total nitrogen and phosphorus removal required under municipal discharge rules (general industry range, not from the sources). A site that stays online through basin-by-basin refurbishment, as Hohenfels is doing, is implicitly running a biological train with parallel aeration basins and duty/standby pumps rather than a single line, which fits a screening, primary clarification, biological (A2O or MBBR or SBR), and tertiary disinfection arrangement. The new building itself is a personnel and operations facility, not a process unit, so the event bears on the operator-side envelope of the plant: control room, locker and welfare space, and the workspace for the maintenance crews who will subsequently take the other basins and buildings offline. For procurement readers, a "live refurbishment" of an existing biological train is typically specified around temporary flow splitting, bypass pumping, and replacement of aeration, diffuser and scraper components inside the redundant basin while the other carries full load, before the second basin is taken down. Municipal and Industries We Serve readers running similar dual-train biological works will recognise the redundancy Rabhansl describes, while buyers looking at packaged biological lines for parallel retrofit can compare the integrated biological package options on Integrated Sewage Treatment. Related reading on selecting the right solids-separation step inside a refurbishment of this type is in the comparison of DAF vs Clarifier for Chemicals Wastewater in Haysville, US: 2026 Factory Guide and DAF vs Clarifier for Industrial Organic Chemicals Wastewater in Foster, US (2026 Factory Guide).
FAQ
What was actually completed at Hohenfels on 12 August 2026? The roof of a new building at the sewage treatment site was dedicated in a Hebefest, or topping-out ceremony, with garrison staff, contractors and community partners present, per Army.mil.
Why is the repair being done while the plant keeps running? The Directorate of Public Works said Hohenfels is in full training mode and "will not stand still for two years or three years," and the plant has redundant basins and pumps that allow one unit at a time to be taken offline, per Army.mil.
What is the next phase after the new building opens? Once personnel occupy the new operations and personnel building, the Directorate of Public Works will move on to renovations of the other buildings at the site, per Army.mil.
What should a buyer compare when planning a live biological-plant refurbishment? A live refurbishment of an existing biological train is typically scoped around temporary flow splitting, bypass pumping, and replacement of aeration, diffuser and scraper components inside one redundant basin while its parallel unit carries full load, before swap-over (general industry practice, not from the sources).
