Rain Muddies Prison Water System

JAMESTOWN, Calif. – Prison officials were recently forced to consider relocating many inmates from a 4,000-bed California state prison after muddy rain runoff began backing up water filters and created a serious water shortage at the facility.

Officials at the Sierra Conservation Center (SCC) held an emergency meeting in January to decide how to address the problem. The SCC houses minimum- to medium-custody inmates and functions as a center for training staff and inmates in firefighting techniques.

To compensate for the water shortage, prison officials temporarily discontinued showers for inmates. In addition, arrangements were made to ship the prison’s laundry to correctional facilities in Mule Creek and Chowchilla. Further steps may include buying bottled water and renting portable toilets.

Excess sediment in the water plugged up filters that treat water pumped from Lake Tulloch, about 2-1/2 miles from Sierra Conservation Center. Typically, maintenance staff respond to clogged filters with a back flush once a day, but personnel were recently back flushing seven to eight times per day.

The muddied water was the result of new houses being built in the area. Clearing property without protections from runoff increases water turbidity in the water supply at Lake Tulloch, said officials from the local irrigation district. The Sierra Conservation Center normally uses 600,000 gallons of potable water per day, but in early January, the filters were producing only 400,000 gallons.

Each of the SCC's 20 conservation camps is a self-contained open campus and is sited in rural or wilderness areas for fire suppression. Inmates assigned to camps are dispatched to fight wild land fires and other emergencies when needed.