Question: What do submarines do with their human waste?

**RustyBattleship** · 07 Apr 09,, 06:32

Being a bit older than Salty, I remember when ships dumped their "brown" water over the side while at the pier. While waiting for a welder, some shipfitters and tin knockers would practice hitting the turds with spent welding rod stubs.

Quite often it was even dumped while the ship was in dry dock and we had shop 72 laborers clean it up every day (they wore yellow hard hats with a green brim and always looked like they wished they had a different job).

Later, Collection, Holding and Transfer tanks (CHT) were installed to collect the brown waste until either far out at sea or into a sewage truck on the pier or into the city sewage pipes under the pier.

The LHA's had three waste treatment plants on board. One in the Auxiliary Machinery space and two up forward port of the JP-5 pump room. Oh, how I remember those plants. Had to design and redesign cross-bar grating around every one except the aft one. Had to design a bullwark to surround it "if" it should spring a leak.

Normally they would not spring a leak. They would just bust a valve or pipe joint open and spray the whole space. The worst I saw was in the forward waste treatment room on one of the ships (I worked on all 3 on the west coast) where a valve had been removed but the head leading to it wasn't tagged out.

Ever see a white overhead with brown and tan polka dots all over it? Never could find out where the yellow went (a take-off from a Pepsodent tooth paste commercial).

**Kommunist** · 07 Apr 09,, 09:39

Originally Posted by RustyBattleship

Quite often it was even dumped while the ship was in dry dock and we had shop 72 laborers clean it up every day (they wore yellow hard hats with a green brim and always looked like they wished they had a different job).

They didn't have oxygen masks, did they Rusty? Thats very cruel....

)

**RustyBattleship** · 07 Apr 09,, 18:42

Originally Posted by Kommunist

They didn't have oxygen masks, did they Rusty? Thats very cruel....

)

Actually they were encouraged to go over to safety issue and get at least dust masks if they were cleaning up sand blasting grit mixed with paint flakes. For the stuff that was more ooze and watery, the smart ones would soak bandanas in water and wear them over their noses and mouths.

**Dreadnought** · 07 Apr 09,, 18:46

Originally Posted by RustyBattleship

Actually they were encouraged to go over to safety issue and get at least dust masks if they were cleaning up sand blasting grit mixed with paint flakes. For the stuff that was more ooze and watery, the smart ones would soak bandanas in water and wear them over their noses and mouths.

*The smart ones would have sought work in other departments or learned better skills then to clean the toilets in the drydock.

)

**Ytlas** · 07 Apr 09,, 19:05

Originally Posted by Dreadnought

*The smart ones would have sought work in other departments or learned better skills then to clean the toilets in the drydock.

)

It was the Shop 71 Equipment Cleaners who had to do the manual clean ups. Their main "tool" was a bundle of rags.

Oddly, when things got slow and we needed extra people to go rip out asbestos, people from the other trades requested to be sent to the Equipment Cleaners instead.

**gunnut** · 08 Apr 09,, 00:39

Originally Posted by RustyBattleship

Normally they would not spring a leak. They would just bust a valve or pipe joint open and spray the whole space. The worst I saw was in the forward waste treatment room on one of the ships (I worked on all 3 on the west coast) where a valve had been removed but the head leading to it wasn't tagged out.

So all you have to do is put a fan in there and we would literally have shit hit the fan?:P