Jails Tired of Flushing Money Down the Drain
JWC Helps County Eliminate Sewage Problem at Jail
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — When clothing, towels, rags and trash joined the waste stream from toilets at the Santa Barbara County Jail, local wastewater treatment plant officials were not happy. Inmates were intentionally clogging and blocking downstream pumps and systems inside the plant, and the county needed to plunge the problem.
After nearly 10 years of problems, the jail installed sewage grinders to circumvent attempts to burden the county with extra work and repairs.
“It was the right thing to do,” says Paddy Langlands, assistant director of facilities for the county. “They knew it was our stuff.”
Initially, special hooks were installed in the 4-inch pipes behind the toilets to help catch items that should not have been flushed and to pinpoint which inmates were causing the problems. However, some systems could not be retrofitted and the tactic only partially solved the sewage disruptions.
After reviewing several options, the county and its consulting engineer, Jim Albrecht of Santa Maria, Calif.-based Ravatt Albrecht & Associates, suggested a sewage grinder from JWC Environmental of Costa Mesa, Calif.
“We had used JWC on another project at the juvenile hall in Santa Barbara and we had great reliability with it,” Albrecht says. “We haven’t received one complaint.”
County officials witnessed the power of the machines before installation with a demonstration CD from the company.
“It has these massive blades that can shred four-by-fours, chairs and sneakers,” Langlands says. “The demo blew us away.”
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(above) Jail facility managers Harry Mira Remido (left) and Robert Rocha (right) stand next to the Macho Monster grinder. The grinder is located in an underground vault where sewage from the jail passes through it and into the city sewer system for treatment. |
“The majority of our jail projects use the smaller Muffin Monster grinder, but because of the large flow this site needed our biggest — the Macho Monster,” says Alec Mackie of JWC Environmental.
The installation is in a below-grade pit with the grinder located inside the outgoing sewage pipeline and an emergency bypass system. The sewage from the jail passes through the Macho Monster, before entering into the city sewer system for treatment.
“The grinder is sized based on the sewer flow rate — this single 18-inch pipeline handled all the flow from hundreds of inmates, so our biggest grinder was needed,” Mackie says.
The clogging of prison sewer systems is a growing problem across the United States. In some cases, prisoners are footing the bill for repairs; in others, counties are paying close to $1 million to rectify the situation.
Officials at the Maguire Correctional Facility in San Mateo, Calif., are battling approximately $700,000 in bills from the South Bayside System Authority, which maintains the area’s sewer system. Inmates have been flushing plastic bags of illegal drugs, handmade weapons, cigarettes and orange jumpsuits, and at times, simply flooding jail cells to cause chaos, according to county officials.
Authorities attribute the flooding to overcrowded and understaffed conditions at the facility. Inmates working in the laundry room sneak extra clothing and sheets to friends, and there is not enough staff to always monitor inmates or search cells. The facility is considering installing delayed-flush mechanisms, and putting screens on jail toilets, stocking the jail commissary with more biodegradable items, and limiting the possessions offered to inmates.
In another incident, two inmates at Collier jail in Naples, Fla., were charged with tampering with the facility’s sewage system when they intentionally clogged their toilets and caused unsanitary water to flood common areas and the infirmary.
At the Kennebec County Correctional Facility in Augusta, Maine, Ronald Hanson and Robby Beasley were charged with flooding the sewer system with blankets, jail uniforms and other clothing. Hanson was sentenced to four months in jail and faces a restitution bill of $21,397; Beasley was waiting for his sentence as of press time.