Officials point fingers as Abilene prisons' mid-summer water outages challenge heat-mitigation tactics

A pair of prisons in Abilene have suffered from low water pressure since Wednesday, and TDCJ and local officials are pointing fingers regarding who's to blame. Reported KTXS-TV:

Jason Clark, the director of public information for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, confirmed water pressure has been low since Wednesday.

Clark said water use is being restricted -- showers and laundry are limited, and water to some buildings is being shut off intermittently.

“When the water is off to those buildings, obviously the persons cannot flush the toilet at that point, but once it comes back on they have the ability to do that,” Clark said. “We're just ensuring we restrict water so we can keep that water pressure up.”

The TDCJ and the city of Abilene are working on the problem. Both say the issue is the other’s responsibility.

“It does not appear at this time that it's [the problem’s] on our property, so they continue to investigate that,” Clark said.

“We suspect there is an issue on their side of the meter,” Rodney Taylor, interim director of water utilities, said. “We really don't have access on that side of the meter to help them resolve the issue.”

Long-time readers may recall that TDCJ is Abilene's largest water user, by far.

This news comes on the heels of a related 5th Circuit ruling. As the Austin Statesman reported, "Wednesday’s appeals court decision said Louisiana prisons could avoid heat-related cruel and unusual punishment by cooling common areas and supplying personal ice containers and ample cold water."

The weather forecast in Abilene predicts highs of 95-99 degrees Fahrenheit over the next few days. How exactly will TDCJ provide ice or cold water if there's not enough water to flush the toilets?

State prisons are Abilene's biggest water user

This summer's drought elevated water-usage issues to the fore throughout Texas. Given current population growth and the fact that we're already facing shortages, it's not difficult to predict the crisis will only worsen in the next few years.

So I was interested to see this story from the Abilene Reporter News ("Water use likely to rise this year," Sept. 19) indicating that the Department of Criminal Justice is the largest water user in Abilene, with two TDCJ units soaking up 240.7 million gallons last year. "Usage at TDCJ outdistanced Dyess Air Force Base’s nearly 236.7 million gallons, Coca-Cola’s 94 million gallons, Abtex Beverage Corp.’s 67.1 million gallons and Abilene Independent School District’s 66.9 million gallons," according to the Abilene Reporter-News.

This is a bit of a sleeper issue that I'd not considered previously. Spokesman Jason Clark "attributes TDCJ’s high usage in Abilene to the approximately 5,000 offenders — as well as 900 employees — at the two prison units. The Middleton Unit also does all laundry for the Robertson Unit, Clark said." That means these units between them are using a little more than 48,000 gallons per year per inmate.

Abilene residents used 5.7 billion gallons of water last year, and more than one out of every 23 gallons went to TDCJ. With 110 other TDCJ prison units around the state, I'll bet that's not the only place where TDCJ is the biggest community water user. Indeed, it's quite possible that, in aggregate, TDCJ is the largest water user in the state (possibly in competition with the Department of Defense).

Clark told the paper TDCJ is already taking some steps to reduce water use:

Clark said the TDCJ has taken steps to conserve water, including replacing 306 shower heads with “economizer shower heads,” which use 1.5 gallons of water per minute — with some having timers. TDCJ has also wrapped steam line pipes at the facilities with insulation to “help with evaporation and conserve energy as well as reducing the amount of water required when heat isn’t lost,” Clark said.

Clark said TDCJ has an active program statewide to reduce utility costs and the amount of usage and continually encourages all manners of conservation.

I don't know exactly what all TDCJ is doing to reduce utility bills, but this issue isn't going away anytime soon. Keeping the water flowing will likely be a source of increased expense in the coming years. Texas faces a growing water shortage and at root there are two ways to address it: Rationing or pricing. So far, rationing has been the method of choice for most local governments and those restrictions mostly fall on residential customers, not institutional users.

By contrast, large commercial and institutional water users typically get volume discounts compared to residential rates. But if we have too many more repeats of this year's rain shortage, the day will come when rationing is inadequate and utilities begin charging higher prices to their most voluminous customers to enforce conservation goals. And TDCJ appears to be among the most voluminous of all.