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To: SandRat
Naval commanders blamed the problems on inappropriate objects such as clothes or feminine hygiene products being flushed down the heads.

There have been women on carriers for over a decade now. Are you suggesting that they have just started doing that? Sounds more like a design flaw in the plumbing system to me.

35 posted on 11/17/2011 5:07:07 PM PST by SoJoCo
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To: SoJoCo
There have been women on carriers for over a decade now. Are you suggesting that they have just started doing that? Sounds more like a design flaw in the plumbing system to me.

Yep, sounds like a major design problem. From the wiki page:

"Environmental

Environmental upgrades have also been designed into the ship, including a vacuum collection/marine sanitation device (VC/MSD), a new marine sewage system that uses fresh water in lieu of sea water for lower maintenance costs. Many older ships in the U.S. Navy utilize a gravity-driven collection holding and transfer (CHT) system to handle sewage waste. Newer US Navy ships, including now CVN-77, collect sewage waste by vacuum, allowing for greater flexibility in piping installation, smaller pipe sizes overall and reducing water consumption.

The collection tanks of Bush were modified to accommodate both the VCHT (Vacuum CHT) equipment and the elements of a marine sanitization device to treat the waste prior to discharge. Bush is the first and only aircraft carrier in the U.S. Navy to combine the two technologies.

This new VC/MSD driven waste management system has, however, not been without problems. Reports began surfacing immediately after delivery in May of 2009 of issues with the ships toilet system. As of November, 2011, the entire system has gone down at least twice, rendering all 423 commodes in the ship's 130 heads inoperable, with many more incidents that have rendered either half of the ship, or sections of the ship, without operating sanitary facilities. In one ship-wide incident, a repair crew spent 35 non-stop hours attempting to return the system to working order."

*********************

So it sounds like the ladies will have to be relegated to the older vessels where the plumbing isn't quite so easy to plug-up.

44 posted on 11/17/2011 5:45:21 PM PST by Charles Martel (Endeavor to persevere...)
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