The U.S. Office of Special Counsel has faulted the Federal Bureau of
Prisons for failing to address exposure of both its staff and inmates
to “excessive levels of toxic metals” from computer recycling
enterprises.  In so doing, the Special Counsel backed a prison
safety manager who blew the whistle on a prison industry operation in
which inmates wielding hammers smashed computer terminals using only
cardboard boxes for “containment” of heavy metal particles.

In a letter dated April 3, 2006, Scott Bloch, the Bush appointed
Special Counsel who formerly served in the Department of Justice (the
parent agency overseeing the Bureau of Prisons), called for a
“thorough, independent, and impartial investigation into recycling
operations at [Bureau of Prisons] institutions.”  Bloch
characterized Bureau responses to the whistleblower charges as
“unreasonable,” “inconsistent with documentary evidence,” and relying
on “strained interpretations” of safety requirements.

Leroy Smith, the safety manager at Atwater Federal Prison, a
maximum-security institution located just outside of Merced,
California, originally came forward in December 2004 with documents
showing that computer terminal disassembly plants were spewing
particles of heavy metals, such as lead, cadmium, barium and beryllium,
over inmates and civilian prison staff.  Smith’s lawyer, Mary
Dryovage of San Francisco, and Public Employees for Environmental
Responsibility (PEER) today called on the Justice Department Office of
Inspector General to immediately open a probe into health and safety
violations.

“The Bureau of Prisons scapegoats its employees while UNICOR makes
millions off the backs of the staff and inmates who are being poisoned
by exposure to toxics,” said Dryovage, who also successfully
represented Smith in a complaint of reprisal for raising safety
concerns at Atwater.  Smith has since accepted a transfer to
another prison.

The federal prison industry authority, called UNICOR, has operated a
computer recycling plant at Atwater since 2002 but the operation has
been plagued by shutdowns and safety problems, including:

•    Particles of heavy metals are released when inmate
workers break glass cathode ray tubes during shipping and
disassembling.  Beyond the prison environment, staff going home
with toxic dust on their clothes risk spreading contamination to their
families;
•    The UNICOR factory at Atwater had an open food service in the contaminated work areas; and
•    Prison staff and inmates were not informed of
health risks or given training on handling contaminants. Blood and
urine monitoring is incomplete.

Six other federal prisons have similar computer recycling plants. 
Even though test results at two of the prisons, Elkton, Ohio, and
Texarkana, Texas, found similarly excessive exposure levels, the Bureau
has declined to investigate conditions at these facilities.

“Today hundreds of prison supervisors and hundreds more inmates who
worked in the computer recycling plants have real and growing health
questions but no answers from the Bureau of Prisons, despite a
year-long review,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch.

While the Bureau of Prisons review of Smith’s whistleblower disclosure
was begun under Attorney General John Ashcroft, it was completed by his
successor, Alberto Gonzales, who signed off on the review that was
deemed inadequate by the Special Counsel.  

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Read the Office of Special Counsel findings
http://www.peer.org/docs/osc/06_5_4_smith_letter.pdf

See the original whistleblower disclosure of prison safety manager Leroy Smith
http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=503

Look at Federal Bureau of Prisons’ admission of problems and promise to discipline staff
 http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=580

View the call for an independent investigation of the health and safety impacts of the prison computer recycling operations
http://www.peer.org/docs/osc/06_5_4_letter.pdf

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