Benton County has a $3 million fix for leaky walls, roofs in jail and courthouse

Benton County crews have been fixing leaking water pipes in the jail at least twice a week for years.

Now pipes installed when the original Benton County jail was built about 35 years ago are being replaced as part of a year-long project.

Those leaks along with water seeping through concrete in recreations yards left corrections officers and inmates with an unsanitary and unsafe conditions when they happen, said jail Capt. Josh Shelton.

Banlin Construction is in the middle of a $3 million project to replace pipes, place sealant on the exercise yards as well as put in new pipes throughout several sections of the law and justice complex on Okanogan Place.

Crews have been taking down walls to expose several feet of pipe serving the showers and toilets in one side of the old jail. They’ve also taken out the showers and laid down new sand which will serve as the base of the stalls.

This is the second phase of the project, said Robert Blain, a county public works manager. They’ve already renovated the showers in the Benton County Sheriff’s Office locker room, fixed a hot water system in the clerk’s office and fixed the heating and cooling system.

“It’s a fairly extensive process,” he said. “In the sheriff’s office, we were cracking open all of the ceiling tiles. We replaced all of the main pipes down there. As we go through we’ll replace the drain pipes.”

Managing water

At the center of all of the replaced pipes is a block box, which will monitor how much water is being used.

The I-CON water control system will be able to see how many times a toilet is being flushed, or how long the shower is in use and cut the water.

The Florida-based company makes systems designed to be used in jails and prisons around the country.

According to the company’s website, its systems have saved more than 5 billion gallons of water from being wasted ever year, totaling $30 million of taxpayer money.

Many times bored inmates will flush toilets repeatedly or take long showers, Blain said. This system will help curtail that.

“You can put the settings so someone is not just hitting the button repeatedly,” he said. “It will send an alert back and we can set schedules, like a shower can only be so long.”

While Blain and Shelton weren’t able to say for certain how much the new system will save, they said it would cut down the jail’s $10,000 a month water bill from the city.

Closed cells

A section designed to hold as many as 92 inmates in the old jail has been closed off while the work gets done.

With the doors open, tools and pipes sitting out and walls torn down it wouldn’t be safe for the staff, inmates or correctional officers to try to use the cells.

“Pretty much every pod in the old portion of the jail is going to have some extensive work like this,” Blain said. “Each one is a little different in how we approach it.”

The jail has an average population of 600 inmates with the ability to hold more than 800, most of the space is in the newer section of the jail, which opened in 2003.

In response they have lowered the number of inmates they will accept from the state Department of Corrections, Shelton said.

This is likely to last through July 2020 when the project is expected to be finished. Once the construction crews are done with that portion of the old jail, they will move into the other half.

“It’s going to make it a better facility,” Shelton said. “A facility that is going to last a lot longer and just be a better environment for the inmates and for the staff to work in. We’re excited about it.”