Double jeopardy? (Environmental Justice).

The U.S. prison population grew from 1.1 million in 1990 to over 1.96 million in 2001, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, and more prisons have been built to meet the need for greater capacity. But societal and economic pressures often mean prisons are built on sites that may be contaminated by hazardous industrial waste. And while it's relatively easy for a neighborhood group or business to request a test or press for compliance, prison inmates have greatly restricted access to information and legal instruments.

"Prisoners are not a high priority in our society, and won't ever be. It's a group that's very vulnerable," says Anna Harding, chair of the Department of Public Health at Oregon State University. When environmental problems arise, Harding adds, neither inmates nor prison workers "receive the attention a mainstream community would."

The issue is hard to track due to a dearth of information--no database cross-references prison land use with environmental hazards. But a decade ago, Jan Elvin, editor of the American Civil Liberties Union's National Prison Project Journal noted in that publication's Fall 1991 issue that neighborhood reluctance to have either prisons or hazardous waste disposal facilities nearby was forcing both toward rural or low-income areas eager for jobs. Privatization of prisons adds another wrinkle to the problem. A February 2001 Department of Justice report titled Emerging Issues on Privatized Prisons notes the "dramatic increase in prison and jail populations" and the need for new facilities. According to the report, low-bidding private companies can sometimes build a facility in half the time that governments require, in part "because private firms are not bound by governmental rules that tend to slow down prison construction"--including environmental and public health studies.

In November 1998, Harding arranged for an evaluation to be conducted at Oregon State Prison in Salem by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry after a concerned community group asked the university for advice. For years, the prison's dry cleaner had unknowingly released the solvents perchloroethylene (PCE) and trichloroethylene (TCE) into the groundwater. Inmates and workers drank contaminated well water and breathed airborne PCE and TCE until 1989, when the prison went to city water. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency classifies PCE and TCE as known human carcinogens.

According to Harding, the evaluation found "fairly high" levels of PCE and TCE--over 3 times and over 12 times the federal standard, respectively. "Probably the highest risks were to guards who [patrolled] the shower area for eight hours a day," says Harding; inhaling warm water vapors for long periods would constitute a greater exposure than drinking the water. Although the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality cleaned up the plume--which extended into the neighborhood beside the prison--and continues to sample a monitoring well, in May 2001 a federal judge dismissed on procedural grounds a class action suit filed by more than 1,000 former and current inmates and a few former prison employees for harm from the exposure.

Another questionable case involves a Colorado prison. For years a uranium mill near Canon City produced highly radioactive uranium ore; its unlined storage basins became a Superfund site in 1984. Just five miles from the uranium mill stands a privately built prison complex designed for 2,450 inmates and employing several hundred guards and other workers. During its construction, officials noted environmental risks to the areas groundwater, and demonstrators expressed concern over the prison's proximity to the uranium mill. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment says there is little threat of contamination for inmates, and models of underground uranium and molybdenum plumes suggest they do not affect the prison's groundwater. However, in November 2001 a federal judge awarded $43 million to residents of nearby Lincoln Park for cases of cancer and other illnesses stemming from radiation poisoning due to the mill.

Correctional Corporation of America, the largest private operator of U.S. prisons, recognizes that redevelopment incentives strengthen the need for due diligence in its environmental assessments. For example, brownfields redevelopment programs combine tax incentives with the responsibility of developers for testing the sites for toxic residues and guaranteeing their compliance. "In general, we try to avoid environmental issues with our properties," says Linda Staley, corporation vice president for design and construction management.

Edward Harrison, president of the National Commission on Correctional Health Care, welcomes research on any linkage between hazardous waste sites and prison health. "If there's found to be a cluster of health problems," he says, "we need to alert the health staffs at the prisons so they can address it."