Prison toilets not flushable for hours due to pipe crack
CONCORD >> Early Saturday morning a pipe crack forced the Delaware County prison to temporarily discontinue the flushing ability on the toilets in the
1,883-prisoner facility. But had it not halted, the problem could have spread to nearby residents, according to officials.
Warden David Byrne at the George W. Hill Correctional Facility said an 18inch crack appeared in a pipe that feeds water from the municipal water supply to the prison wastewater treatment plant. This pipe is on the grounds of the prison.
“Around 12:30 this morning, we were forced to disable the flushing capabilities on all the toilets in the facility in order to prevent malfunction at the wastewater processing plant,” Byrne said.
“If such a malfunction had occurred, it would have required a much more substantial repair to the George W. Hill facility, and could have affected the Concord Township municipal water supply,” he continued. “We moved quickly to repair the damaged pipe while minimizing the impact not only on the facility’s population but on the community at large.”
Sinks in the facility were able to be used until about 8:45 a.m. when they had to be shut off to work on the repair, the warden said.
“The pipe has now been fully repaired and we are slowly bringing the water pressure up in the facility,” Byrne said, adding that water had been restored to the sinks as of 2:30 p.m.
“We are currently worked to restore flushing capabilities on the toilets,” Byrne said, “but it will take some time as we have to go cell to cell in order to do so. We anticipate that all toilets will be fully functional by 7 p.m.”
Throughout the situation, the prison maintained its other functions in a usual capacity, he added.
“During the water outage, the facility continued to operate normally,” Byrne said. “No other services were interrupted, including medical services and meals, and staff made water available to the inmates during the outage.”