27 Nov 2005
To Flush Or Not To Flush

It's just an excuse for toilet humor ... and I have a tale from a former company (CBSI) to share.

CBSI was headquartered in Sheridan, Indiana - a town of about 1500 residents founded in the 1870's by Union Civil War vets, who named the town after their former commanding general, Phil Sheridan. The company was growing rapidly, employing nearly 300 folks, when it hired a new CFO, who was bound and determined to get a grip on skyrocketing costs. One of the areas that leapt from the books crying for reduction was the water bill.

Sheridan had last "modernized" it's water and sewage utilities in the 1930's, under the WPA, when it's population was about a third of the current number. Using rather large electrical pumps, getting the water out of the ground was rather expensive, and the added cost of new government regulations just made the water bill of the businesses in Sheridan nothing short of extraordinary. So the new CFO took action.

He mandated that every toilet in the CBSI complex (five buildings on either side of a state highway) be replaced with pressure-assisted units. These were early models that used air pressurized at upwards of 45 psi to lessen the water needed to completely flush the commode. As one by the one the commodes were replaced, we workers learned some tricks - for example, never flush while seated, and always shut the lid before flushing, because there would inevitably be some splashback. We also noted a significant increase in pipe "groaning" - and noticed that these groans could be heard in the parking lot, well away from any pipes or buildings. Little did we suspect...

Finally, the day arrived when all the toilets were new, and water usage was reduced by nearly half. There was a healthy upfront cost to the new units, of course, but the bean counters determined that they'd pay for themselves in a matter of weeks. All was apparently well. For about a week.

As best as we in the R&D department could figure, it was mere chance that led to the catastrophe. Apparently the inbound Call Center had served orange juice and donuts to the 100 girls who worked there, and Sales had had a breakfast bash of some sort as well. When break time came at 10 am, nearly every new john in the complex was flushed simultaneously. I was sitting in my office when I heard a tremendous groaning noise, then what sounded like an explosion, followed by a loud thump and the sound of water rushing.

We all dashed to the front of the building to see what had happened, and looking across highway 38, we saw an amazing site: a fountain of brown water spewing from our parking lot across the street, reaching a height of nearly 20 feet (we estimated). The Great CBSI Shit Storm was on!

Apparently, it was really a confluence of several factors that led to our vehicles being washed in human waste (and one poor girl's windshield being smashed by a chunk of asphalt and a manhole cover), and not all of them were due to anything CBSI had done. The sewage treatment plant had been shut down for repairs, and had inadvertently caused a backup through the town's rusty and antiquated pipes. The release valve that should've allowed the backup to flow to the storm sewers had been locked down on orders of the EPA, it no longer being deemed environmentally sound to do this. Consequently it had no place to go, and when the overpressure cause by the mass flushing at CBSI hit, it exploded through the pipes. Apparently it was mere coincidence that the explosion actually hit the business that more or less caused it, but the town fathers were not happy.

I never did find out exactly how much that little episode cost the company, but we did notice that the old toilets were put back into place post haste.

Tired of arguing the same old issues like Linux vs Windows? Choose up sides in the fight over flushing vs non-flushing urinals. The L.A. Times reports on efforts to place the waterless urinal into the Uniform Plumbing Code. To quote: '...the ordinary-looking urinal is at the center of a national debate that has plumbers and water conservationists taking aim at one another.' Amazingly simple, the no-flush urinal uses gravity to force urine through a filter containing a floating layer of oily liquid which then acts as a sealant to prevent sewer odors from escaping. Each no-flush urinal is claimed to save over 24,000 gallons of water a year, but the opposition is concerned about the spread of disease. Although not mentioned in the article this technology is in use around the world. Does anyone have these fixtures installed at their place of employment? Are there any real drawbacks? Is this really a worthwhile debate or just an excuse for toilet humor?

(link) [Slashdot]

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