Brief by Central Staff
Prisons – March 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
Working at a prison may not be the safest job in the world, but at the federal Supermax near Florence, there’s another danger besides fractious inmates — contaminated soil under the prison that can make staffers and inmates sick.
The problem began in the fall of 2003, when a sewer line under the prison clogged and leaked, filling the crawl space, and then the dirt around it, with bacteria and fecal matter.
The pipe was fixed, and an environmental consultant said the contaminated soil should be removed, too. The warden has since twice asked for $418,000 to remove the soil, but the federal Bureau of Prisons denied both budgetary requests.
How it affects inmates is unknown, but one correctional employee said “It gets in through the ventilation system. They’ve had guys getting sick because of breathing that stuff in.”
The corrections officers have a union, Local 1302 of the American Federation of Governmental Employees, and arbitration was planned for late February. Charles Royal of the union said the issue was pretty clear, since the contract calls for a “safe industrial working environment.”
