| Salt Lake City |
 |
 |
| GER |
12 |
16 |
7 |
35 |
 |
| USA |
10 |
13 |
11 |
34 |
|
| NOR |
11 |
7 |
6 |
24 |
|
| CAN |
6 |
3 |
8 |
17 |
|
| RUS |
6 |
6 |
4 |
16 |
|
| AUT |
2 |
4 |
10 |
16 |
|
| ITA |
4 |
4 |
4 |
12 |
|
| FRA |
4 |
5 |
2 |
11 |
|
| SUI |
3 |
2 |
6 |
11 |
|
| NED |
3 |
5 |
0 |
8 |
|
|
|
|
Potty team winning applause
By Christy Karras
Associated Press writer
Forget about "Skategate" or speedskater Apolo Anton Ohno's Oh Nos! This may be the dirtiest story of the Olympics.
It's what organizers give euphemisms such as "after-food waste."
It's sewage. Ultimately, the Olympics will generate about 1.8 million gallons of it.
The waste's fate isn't lingering in the minds of people who use the Games' 2,400 portable toilets. And that's just the way people behind the scenes want it.
"Our job is to make sure things are working and stay out of sight," said Ron Inman, who works for portable toilet supplier A-Company and is project manager for the five companies who joined forces to bid for the Games' toilet contract.
The other companies are Andy Gump Inc. and A Throne Co., both of California; Northwest Cascade of Tacoma, Wash.; and Super Bowl Portable Restrooms Inc. of Denver.
Utah's Olympic venues started out with few toilets. Most won't need many after the Games.
Solution: temporary toilets.
The portable potties, all brand-new for the games, come in three different varieties, Inman said.
There are two types of single-stall toilets. Even the basic ones feature paper seat covers and hand sanitizers.
"The hand sanitizer wasn't something (organizers) originally cared about," Inman said. "We pushed it and pushed it hard to get it in there."
The fancier plastic potties have water and heat.
Then there are the top-of the-line restroom trailers, which are not only heated but also have real flush toilets, sinks and even stereos.
Those upscale restrooms are scattered around the venues and many of them are used by Olympic staff, athletes and family members.
The toilet team also cleans out restrooms in some 780 portable office trailers and provides fresh water for food services at venues, then takes the used water away.
So, where does all the waste go?
Late at night, after all the events are over, about 80 employees descend on the venues. They vacuum the contents of the toilet tanks into trucks and haul it away to be processed at local sewage treatment plants. Most of the toilets need to be emptied daily, Inman said.
"Venue technicians" clean and restock the toilets. Perhaps the most important ingredient is an antifreeze, which keeps the waste liquid, Inman said.
"If it froze and we couldn't vacuum it out, pretty soon it would build up and overflow and that would not be good," he said. "We've been blessed with the weather. We had some real cold weather earlier, which always makes it tricky when you're dealing with liquids."
"It's kind of hard to perform the duty we have if you can't get into the venues. We're not just dropping stuff off," Inman said.
Inman hasn't heard many complaints — "We don't have a real good pipeline to the general public" — but he has heard a few compliments. "We've had all kinds of venue managers saying, 'Of all the suppliers and vendors, you're our favorite.' "
Or maybe, despite the lack of glamour, the most necessary.
"We're so low on the list, nobody pays attention to us until they need us — until they have to go," Inman said. "It's a topic that needs to be, for people's comfort, not on the front of it. But they need us."
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February 23, 2002
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