Chips Ahoy: Innovative Tool Helps Keep Chips Environment Clean - San Diego Naval Base develops a method to keep paint chips out of San Diego Bay - Brief Article

All Hands, June, 2001 by Scott Sutherland

Members of Naval Base San Diego's Port Operations Department have designed and developed what could be the first Navywide reinforced vinyl laminated fabric canvas paint chip collector to keep paint chips from falling into San Diego Bay! The unique "catch-all" is being used with man-lift baskets when Sailors chip paint o ships.

"This is an example of the Naval Station taking proactive steps to be good stewards of the environment," said CDR Cliff Maurer, the station's public works officer and native of Orefield, Pa. "We need to continue to keep the fleet mission ready and ships need this kind of maintenance. But that doesn't mean we give up our environmental responsibility to the bay."

The initial concept of a "paint chip collector" first came to fruition last August after a Regional Water Quality Control Regulator met with Naval Base Commanding Officer CAPT Len Hering. The regulator noticed that work over the side posed an immediate risk and probably should be addressed Hering directed members of the Public Works Center (PWC) and Port Operations Departments team to design and develop a paint chip catch-all to help support the station's environmental program and address the regulators concern.

Maurer asked PWC Technical Services Division put the idea together and construct a basket that could be suspended beneath the man-lift baskets. With plans and designs in hand, Steve Healy, a PWC model maker from Glendale, Calif., went to work designing an aluminum prototype pan.

The pan took about a week to build, said, Healy. After the work was completed, it was delivered to USS Comstock (LSD 5), which was the test platform for the chip collector.

"Man-lift baskets come in different sizes," said Healy, "and we designed the first one according to Comstock's specifications. After we got to the ship, three Sailors were waiting for us to hook it up to their basket. It took about one minute to attach it."

According to Maurer, the aluminum prototype was heavy and bulky, which led to its review last December. Members of PWC and Port Operations got together and decided to design and develop a new model -- the canvas prototype. Chief Warrant Officer Scott Sinclair of Temple City, Calif., the liquid cargo site manager for Port Ops, offered to take on the task.

One of the designers of the lightweight canvas chip collector, Boatswain's Mate 2nd Class Glenn Landers of Sanger, Calif., the hazardous material (HAZ MAT) coordinator for Port Operations, said the canvas catch-all domes in two parts -- a slip and a pan. The slip, he said, covers the front part of the manlift basket, and helps reduce the spilling of debris into the water. The pan has a plywood bottom that extends to the ship.

"Magnets attach the canvas to the side of the ship," said Landers. "Canvas is durable and lightweight, and It's working out much better."

The other canvas prototype designer from Port Ops, San Francisco native BM2(SW) Paul Elkins, said the prototype cost about $400. But, subsequent ones should cost about $300 each," he said.

"Having magnets on the canvas chip collector helps it adhere to the angles and curves of a ship," added Elkins.

Sinclair said the canvas-style catchall is a good thing," and it's going to help out in the long run. "It's doable, it's working and it takes about a minute to put on" he added.

"This is absolutely the right and responsible thing to do," said Hering. "We have a duty to find ways to protect the environment while we maintain these ships and ensure our Navy's operational readiness."