By Tony Capaccio (Bloomberg)– New commodes on the Navy’s 2 most recent warship block so often that the ships’ sewer system have to be cleansed regularly with customized acids setting you back concerning $400,000 a flush, according to a brand-new legislative audit detailing $130 billion in undervalued long-lasting upkeep expenses.

The Navy isn’t certain the commode systems on the USS Gerald R. Ford and also the USS George H. W. Bush can stand up to the need consistently often, according to the guard dog firm’s record on solution sustainment expenses launched Tuesday.

The brand-new commode, comparable to what’s utilized on business airplane, is experiencing “unexpected and frequent clogging of the system” so the “unplanned maintenance action” will certainly be required “for the entire service life of the ship,” the GAO claimed in the record asked for by the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Although the pricey commodes are illustratory of the trouble, “we generally did not include these types of ongoing costs in our calculation” of the Navy’s impending sustainment costs, according to the record.

The record comes in the middle of a discussion in Congress, the Pentagon and also the White House over broadening the existing 293-ship Navy to 355 by the mid-2030, a Trump management objective.

Navy expense estimators mentioned that as high as $26 billion of the $130 billion approximated rise in expenses “could be accounted for by process changes that resulted in including more indirect costs, such as health and child care for sailors.”

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