Santa Barbara Correctional Facility Puts Waste In Its Place

When clothing, towels, rags and trash joined the waste stream from toilets at the Santa Barbara County Jail, local wastewater treatment plant officials had a serious issue. Inmates were intentionally clogging and blocking downstream pumps and systems inside the plant, and the county needed to plunge the problem.

After nearly 10 years of difficulty, the jail installed sewage grinders to circumvent attempts to burden the county with extra work and repairs. “It was the right thing to do,” says Paddy Langlands, Assistant Director of Facilities for the county. “They knew it was our stuff.”

Initially, special hooks were installed in the 4-inch pipes behind the toilets to help catch items that should not have been flushed and to pinpoint which inmates were causing the problems. However, some systems could not be retrofitted and the tactic only partially solved the sewage disruptions. After reviewing several options, the county and its consulting engineer, Jim Albrecht of Santa Maria, Calif.-based Ravatt Albrecht & Associates, suggested a sewage grinder from JWC Environmental of Costa Mesa, Calif. “We had used JWC on another project at the juvenile hall in Santa Barbara and we had great reliability with it,” Albrecht says. “We haven’t received one complaint.”