County Council wants report on jail problems
Warden details toilet issues
MEDIA >> Delaware County Council has called upon George W. Hill Correctional Facility officials to conduct a review and give a full accounting following last weekend’s problems at the facility where toilets at the 1,883-inmate prison were unflushable.
“I do ask that an accountability and incident review plan be developed for this incident,” County Council Vice Chairwoman Colleen Morrone said, “so that we can take a look at what happened, why it happened and how we improve on it in the future and that that information be reported back to county council so that we can review it and be assured that action is being taken that our resident sin the prison and outside the prison, that everybody is safe.”
Over the weekend, it was discovered that there was an 18-inch crack in a pipe that feeds municipal water coming from the prison wastewater supply and the ability to flush toilets was suspended for much of the day Saturday and again on Monday as the damaged section was removed and replaced.
“An aging pipe cracked and we moved as quickly as possible to repair the damage in a way that limited the impact on the inmates at the facility while ensuring the general public’s water systems were not impacted,” said George W. Hill Warden David Byrne, as he addressed county council at their regularly scheduled meeting.
He said the crack was identified late Friday evening in a pipe that was more than 100 years old and that flushing capabilities were suspended about 12:30 a.m. Saturday. He added that sink water was suspended on Saturday from 8:45 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.
“No other services were interrupted, including medical services and food service,” Byrne said. “At no point during the outage did inmates lack access to drinking water.”
The warden said toilets began to have their flushing suspended again starting at 2:30 p.m. Monday to allow for the replacement of the line and that water was turned back on to the facility by 6:40 p.m. Monday and all toilets were being flushed by 11:30 p.m.
County Councilman Kevin Madden questioned Byrne’s timeline of events, as he said his understanding was that the water shutdown began at 8 p.m. Friday.
Madden himself visited the prison Monday and said he saw toilets that were full of human waste in cells occupied by three adults, two in separate twin beds and a third sleeping on the floor in a device called “The Boat,” which he described as like a toboggan with a mattress, a couple feet from the toilet. He also said he saw one cell where inmates had placed cellophane over the toilet to remove the stench.
“I get that this is not Club Med,” he said. “We’re not talking about a resort. There’s a certain level that needs to be maintained ... of sanitation and this was not met.”
Madden said he spoke to about 10 inmates at random about the situation.
“Not a single one of them said there was a bucket of water available to them to act as a means of flushing during that time period and that is completely unacceptable,” he said. “Look, this can never happen again.”
Byrne said water was made available to inmates, who were also able to use working, flushing toilets used by the staff, in the medical area or in the gymnasium. He said jugs of water were present for use to flush the toilets.
“I can assure you that those buckets of water for drinking and flushing were made available to the population,” the warden said.
“It’s great that they were available,” Madden said, “but the fact (is) that the inmates didn’t know they were available.”
County Council Chairman John McBlain questioned if Madden had a political motivation.
“My understanding was you went to the jail and you had specific places that you wanted to go,” he said, referring to 2-C, where Madden visited. “Did you get that from the people that are opposed to having a prison in Delaware County?”
Madden acknowledged he asked to visit 2-C, but the others he visited he insisted were random.
Upon speaking with prison Superintendent John Reilly, McBlain said no one was instructed to defecate anywhere else other than a toilet, where it could be flushed.
“It was an unfortunate occurrence,” McBlain said. “We’ll work, we’ll come up with different plans. There was a plan in place. There was bathroom facilities that were available.”
Madden said he needed to present his concerns.
“I just want to make sure that people who are in our custody are given some basic degree of sanitation and safety while they’re in our custody,” he said.
The warden said the safety of the inmates and the community is the highest priority.
“I am sorry for the inconvenience to our inmates, but it was unavoidable under the circumstances and I am proud of the work we did to ensure that the outage was as brief as possible, and that the local community’s water treatment capacity wasn’t impacted,” he said.