Paper ripped bill prummell for ilegal un sanitary jail conditions

Inmates complain of sewage backups, smell

Charlotte County Jail has problems with water, toilet overflows, say people who live there

By ELAINE ALLEN-EMRICH

ENGLEWOOD COMMUNITY EDITOR

Charlotte County says inmates are clogging the sewer system that’s backed up numerous times in recent months.

Inmates disagree, and say bad drinking water, human feces spilling into the hallways and jail cells are making them sick.

On May 24 and May 25, staff and inmates alerted jail administration of the smell from the drains. At the time, Capt. Melissa Turney, assistant jail commander, explained a water flush of the main line was completed and the smell dissipated before the maintenance staff left the facility.

“This was unfortunately an issue that was out of our control, but dealt with swiftly for the sake of our population,” Turney told the Sun.

However, since then, inmates say the sewer system and toilets keep backing up, the water smells and allegedly causes rashes.

“It took us an hour to clean up the floor. It does it every time it rains,” inmate Barbara Potts wrote to the Sun

in July. She wrote that ants floated through the backed up system and into her jail cell. “They are everywhere. I woke up and they were in the bed with me.”

Potts, who says she suffers from asthma, heart disease,

SEE SMELL, 3B

A pod at the Charlotte County Jail featured on the Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office website.

PHOTO PROVIDED


SMELL

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COPD, seizures and high blood pressure, fears getting sick from the constant sewage smell, as well as the threat of COVID-19 in the jail.

BAD DRINKING AND SHOWER WATER

It’s not just the sewer system, but the water is causing problems, too, inmates say. Inmate Melissa King wrote the drinking and shower water has a brown tint and tastes like rust.

“If you add a juice packet or coffee to it, you can’t taste it,” she wrote in early July to the Sun. “The water in the shower and in our cells stinks of an odor of fecal waste. There are waste baskets with plungers and fecal matter in them sitting in the dayroom on both top and bottom tiers. Plungers are used so often they are rarely put away or cleaned.

Potts said since July 26, she’s had to keep a plunger near her cell door in order to get the toilet to flush.

“When the toilets overflow, you are given blankets and sheets to clean them up. These are used as inmates bedding,” she wrote.

“Utilization of bedding is not the first choice of cleanup for any type of spill,” Skip Conroy, Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson, wrote to the Sun. “Other means are utilized when available. However, in an emergency situation, this may occur. If this does occur, the items are cleaned or disposed of according to bio-hazard procedure.”

ONGOING SEWER ISSUES

“Several areas of this jail are experiencing flooding and sewage issues and they are going to put our food on a cart and push it down a long hallway with feces into a pod and serve us,” inmate James Scholtz wrote to the Sun.

“There’s black mold all over the outside bricks on the rec yard. The sewage system is again backed up causing multiple issues in several pods. My pod and the bottom floor is flooded. They have the exhaust fans on for hours now. It smells like sewage so bad we can taste it.”

According to Brian Gleason, Charlotte County spokesperson, backups are sometimes caused by inmates.

“We have no knowledge of any major sewage backups outside of routine issues,” Gleason wrote to the Sun. “Routine occurrences are minor backups, usually cause by inmates flushing materials down the toilet.”

King wrote that inmates aren’t constantly clogging toilets.

“Just urinating in the toilet and then it backs up,” King wrote. “There’s a slight odor of sewage in the cells from the sink drain, but it’s very strong in the showers. It’s as if the sewage waste is mixing with the water coming from the faucets.”

WHAT’S IN THE WATER?

Inmate Hope Green writes that she believes the water is responsible for scalp diseases and rashes.

“Washing your hair (in the jail) is a once-a-week thing and it still causes scalp irritations,” she wrote to the Sun. “If you do more than a couple weeks, you are guaranteed to get what the medical staff calls dandruff. Your head will itch and begin to bleed. It isn’t dandruff. Dandruff is flaky. This is definitely a fungus you get from washing your head in this water. Medical (staff) gives you shampoo, it stinks and stains your clothes. It will clear up for a few months, then you got to do it again. I’ve seen girls get ringworm and even jock itch from showering in the water.”

Despite any inmate grievances to jail staff, Gleason said the county is unaware of any complaints.

“The jail has a specialized wastewater grinder system to prevent materials put into toilets from clogging the pipes,” he wrote. “Our facilities director said he was not made aware of any issues with either the water or wastewater systems, but he would look into it.”

Scholtz hopes someone will get to the bottom of the sewage issue.

“My medication was brought directly to my door upstairs, and you can see the guards and nurses shoes are soaked and making footprints all down the upper hall,” he wrote. “My throat is all scratchy and I am coughing up phlegm. I have a headache. We were told the backup generator is not working properly. This jail is not functioning as designed and is jeopardizing people’s safety and health.”

King said on July 27, due to the lockdown, some inmates had been in their cells for 48 hours with no access to showers, cleaning supplies or for assigned telephone time.

“How can they do this to us,” King wrote.

The sheriff’s office recently produced a five-minute video on jail cleanliness.

“For the first time in my 15 months here, there was fresh fruit was cut and on trays for an inspection,” King wrote. “Lights and toilets were checked, they sprayed for ants and ran a mop through all jail cells. I think it was all for show. None of us inmates got to eat any fruit, but I was in one of their pictures. Unbelievable!”

Charlotte County referred the Sun to Punta Gorda Utilities to ask about water quality issues at the jail. No one from that department responded for an interview. Email: elaine.allen@yoursun.com

Copyright (c)2020 Sun Coast Media Group, Edition 7/31/2020
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It's been a long time since I've checked out this site. After reading through several posts this one caught my I and made me laugh. I've worked at the jail for many years and can shed some light on this issue. The sewers back up often because when the jail was being constructed they used cast unlined iron pipe. Now in Florida this isn't the best choice, but what compounded it was the placement. Everything flows to the street, Airport road. Starting at the front of the jail you have the admin offices, the kitchen, main laundry, and then the pods. The laundry is what really kills the cast iron. Everytime one of the machines run it flushes caustic chemicals down the drain. This also happens in the individual pod laundry rooms to a lesser degree since they don't run as often. All these chemicals have corroded the cast iron. The cast iron collapses and sewage starts backing up starting in the admin bathrooms, the kitchen, main laundry, and yes even the pods usually starting in the D pods. I have witnessed them cut through the concrete and dig down to the pipe several times to get to the line to repair it. It stinks like hell and we use inmates to dig through the dirt soaked with raw sewage. They did reline a short run of it starting at the front going all the way to the kitchen, but this didn't fix the issue. On a side I had to laugh at Turney's quotes. That has to be the most evil woman alive. Most of what she says is complete BS. Hardly anyone will call her out as she doesn't take being wrong very well. She's vindictive as all hell.