Water returns to Lexington prison after 3 pumps failed
LEXINGTON — Water was restored Sunday to the Lexington Assessment and Reception Center after three of the prison’s six water pumps failed the day before.
Crews worked through the night to replace the primary water pump, according to the Oklahoma Department of Corrections.
The 1,450-bed prison is currently operating on four water pumps, with two additional pumps still inoperable.
“I thank the crews who worked tirelessly through the night to ensure both facilities were returned to normal functions,” Department of Corrections Interim Director Joe Allbaugh said. “Without their efforts, this situation could have been a lot worse.”
Prison officials moved to have the nearby Joseph Harp Correctional Center, a 1,405-bed facility, ration water as a precautionary measure and shipped in bottled water to meet the needs of inmates at the prison.
A tanker truck of water was brought in to allow staff and prisoners to cook meals and flush toilets.
Work on the two remaining broken pumps could take several weeks, spokesman Alex Gerszewski said.
The water tanker was provided by the Lexington Volunteer Fire Department at no cost to the state Corrections Department, Gerszewski said. Additional water brought to the facility over the weekend was left over from the water line break at Dick Conner Correctional Center in June, he said.
Gerszewski was unable Monday to provide a cost estimate for the pump repairs.
Infrastructure needs have long plagued the state Corrections Department, and a similar issue at Dick Conner, a 1,300-bed facility in Hominy, left it without water when a line broke.
The prison was forced to set up makeshift showers on its basketball courts, truck in 1,300 gallons of water and rent a freezer trailer. Inmates there were given buckets of water to flush their toilets.
That same month, the Lexington prison ran on generators for nearly five days after lightning knocked out its transformer. The department spent a combined $64,000 to fix the problems at both prisons.
The state prison system is rife with infrastructure needs, including overcrowded facilities operating with broken boilers, water heaters, cooling and heating systems, and deteriorating plumbing, among other issues. Allbaugh estimated his agency is facing more than $2 billion in infrastructure needs in its two dozen facilities, many of which are more than a century old.