As problems are fixed, water bill drops at Trumbull County Jail

A drop in the number of inmates has also contributed to drops in water usage.

By ED RUNYAN

VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF

WARREN — The combined water and sewer bill at the Trumbull County Jail dropped 18 percent since Commissioner Frank Fuda questioned whether jail officials were allowing wasteful water usage and repairs were made to many of the jail’s faucets.

But a jail official says it’s not clear whether measures taken to reduce waste are responsible for the drop in cost.

The most recent water bill received by the Trumbull County commissioners last week for April 17 through May 14 came to $6,341, an 18 percent drop from the $7,763 paid for the previous month. The bill, issued by the Warren utility department, combines water and sewer. However, the water-only portion of the bill also decreased by 18 percent.

Reducing usage

The April-May bill is the first one covering one full month since Fuda took a tour of the jail facility and discovered what appeared to him to be wasteful water usage.

The bills show that the jail used 1,877 hundreds of cubic feet of water from March 15 through April 16, compared with 1,530 hundreds of cubic feet from April 17 through May 14, which is also a drop of 18 percent.

Fuda said he was visiting the jail to look at leaking showers when he discovered that water was running in the sinks of 90 percent of the jail cells in the men’s section.

In the days that followed, Fuda and other county officials agreed to have maintenance personnel spend more time in the jail, attempting to repair broken faucets. Some had been jammed into the open position by inmates, who used the warm or cold water to keep various food and drink items warm or cold.

Other causes

Ernie Cook, chief deputy for Sheriff Thomas Altiere, said he believes some of the cost reductions are the result of fixing jammed faucets, but other water losses that have been corrected had nothing to do with inmates wasting water.

Cook said the maintenance workers who have met with jail officials every week since Fuda’s first visit in early April have attempted to correct at least two other types of problems.

One problem has to do with leaks in the plumbing away from the inmates. Another has to do with mineral deposits that have caused leaks in the faucets, Cook said.

A third factor is that the number of inmates has dropped from around 345 a couple of months ago to around 317 last month, Cook said.

Fuda, who was out of town on county business Monday and could not be reached to comment, said the jail’s water and sewer bills were averaging around $8,500 per month for the period between April 2007 and the previous spring.

runyan@vindy.com