EVERETT — Since Snohomish County opened the jail building on Wall Street in the 1980s, it’s been subject to a reoccurring problem: inmates plugging toilets, then flushing them to flood their cells.
That’s one factor pushing county leaders to take a closer look at the jail’s water use. In add
ition to the issue at the Wall Street jail building, there’s been heavy use of kitchen and laundry facilities at the newer jail building on Oakes Avenue.
The sheriff’s office chief in charge of the jail said plugged toilets in the jail are infrequent and hardly unique to Snohomish County. Inmates in Spokane County Jail caused similar flooding there in August.
“There have been a couple of occasions when there has been some decent flooding,” Corrections Bureau Chief Mark Baird said. “All jails have it. Occasionally there is some flooding and nobody wants it, because you have to clean it up.”
The county pays the jail’s water bills every two months. At the new jail, the water bill last year totalled close to $19,000 and the sewer bill was about $124,000. Compare that to the old jail: $9,100 for water, nearly $55,000 for sewer.
There’s apparently enough potential savings in controlling water and sewer costs to warrant asking for a $30,000 study. The County Council has scheduled a public hearing at 10:30 a.m. May 11 to consider using money from the county facilities department to pay for it.
Water use isn’t the only concern set for discussion during the hearing. Another is an estimated $500,000 overhaul of the jail’s security systems. That includes $69,000 for a study, plus an estimated $410,000 for repairs.
That came as a surprise to some County Council members last week, since the shiny, eight-story jail building on Oakes Avenue opened fairly recently, in 2005.
County facilities employees discovered problems with the security system during a review last year, a staff summary explains. They found outdated equipment with problems that affect jail operations.
Potential security upgrades include cameras, automatic door components and software. Some devices were installed in the new building in 2003, before it opened, others in the older Wall Street jail building in 1986.
“This is just something that we have to look to be set into the future,” Baird said. “Technology advances by leaps and bounds.”
Manufacturers no longer support some of the technology underpinning security systems at the jail, county facilities management director Mark Thunberg said. That has forced staff to spend more time on workarounds and to buy rebuilt equipment from other companies.
The current security systems work, and there is no risk to the public, Thunberg said. They’re designed to fail in a secure mode — keeping prisoners inside — if they stop working.
Noah Haglund: 425-339-3465, nhaglund@heraldnet.com.
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