Federal Prisons to Get Environmental Checks
More than a dozen federal prisons that house about 20,000 inmates in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia will undergo an environmental check to see if they meet regulations for controlling air and water pollution, hazardous waste, and other environmental risks.
More than a dozen federal prisons that house about 20,000 inmates in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia will undergo an environmental check to see if they meet regulations for controlling air and water pollution, hazardous waste, and other environmental risks.
Under an agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Prisons will voluntarily audit 16 of its prison facilities in the EPA’s mid-Atlantic region, joining a growing number of companies and organizations that have agreed to self-police their environmental compliance and disclose violations they may find.
Under the audit agreement, the bureau has agreed to disclose all EPA-enforceable regulatory violations discovered during the audit and to correct the violations within 60 days. Under EPA’s audit policy, prisons that come forward to report their violations can reduce, and in some cases, eliminate penalties as long as the violations cause no direct harm to public health or the environment, they are corrected immediately, and the facility has an overall good track record.
Potential environmental hazards at federal prisons are associated with various operations such as heating and cooling, wastewater treatment, hazardous waste and trash disposal, asbestos management, drinking water supply, pesticide use, and vehicle maintenance.
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