Inmates May Fuel Recycling Plant : State Has $97-Million Vision of Turning Trash to Energy on Otay

State prison officials hope to build a $97-million trash-to-energy plant at the new prison on Otay Mesa, where 800 inmates could be put to work sorting through tons of garbage by hand each day.

The plan, proposed by the Prison Industry Authority after two years of quiet study, would be the first in the country to use cheap prison labor to promote recycling, produce electricity and ease the garbage crisis that threatens to overwhelm landfills in San Diego County and the rest of the country.

The county’s shrinking landfill capacity was one reason why prison officials settled on the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in Otay Mesa for the proposed trash-to-energy plant, said a consultant hired by the state Department of Corrections.

‘The Have Plenty of Garbage’

“They have plenty of garbage, . . . and they are aware they have a problem,” said Peter Stasis, project manager with Stone & Webster Engineering Corp. in Denver, of San Diego. “We realized we could handle some of that for them.”

The plan is still in its conceptual stages, and prison officials concede it could face significant environmental hurdles and community opposition. But proponents and at least one county supervisor Monday expressed guarded optimism that the trash-to-energy plant could be built by the 1993 target date.

“I would say it has at least a 50-50 chance,” said Larry Harrison, chief of the prison authority’s new-industries implementation division.

Under the plan, discussed in a voluminous preliminary report, the prison plant would cover 40 of the 774 acres at the Otay prison and cost $94 million to $97 million.

Using cheap inmate labor, it would be the state’s largest and most lucrative prison industry, making $26 million a year, according to projections.

“We came up with the ability to move 98% of the material back into the economic system,” Harrison said of the garbage. “We feel with the inmate labor, which is a cheap labor force, we could economically do that and make a profit at the same time.”

1,000-Bed Addition May Be Proposed

The plan may also call for building a 1,000-bed addition to the medium-security prison to house a wing for minimum-security prisoners allowed to work in the trash plant, Harrison said.

In a letter dated June 26, prison officials asked the county to consider signing a 20-year contract to commit 1,000 tons a day of residential garbage to the prison that would otherwise go to county’s Otay Mesa landfill, about 3 miles from the prison.

The amount, equal to the garbage generated by 500,000 people, is about half of what is already dumped daily at the Otay landfill, which is expected to reach its capacity by 1998.

In return for easing the pressure on the Otay landfill, the prison would take 90% of the “tipping fees” paid by private haulers to unload their trash. The private haulers now pay the county $10.50 a ton, but that fee will increase to $13.50 in October.

The garbage would be hand-sorted by 800 inmates, who would be paid an average of 50 cents an hour to pick out such materials as newspapers, glass and plastic. Those materials would either be sold to private companies or used in other prison enterprises, Harrison said.

Left behind in the waste stream would be organic materials, such as grass clippings and food scraps. That would be mixed with sewage from the prison and deposited into closed “digester” tanks, where microorganisms would help decompose the mixture and create methane gas.

Gas Would Make Electricity

The gas, in turn, would be used to power generators and make 28 megawatts of electricity, which could then be used to run the Otay prison and other state facilities or be sold to the local utility. The water used to cool the generators would be circulated through pipes at the prison for hot showers and heating, Harrison said, adding that even the estimated 96,000 tons of residue left in the digester tanks could be sold as compost.

Harrison said the prison trash-to-energy plant would be the first in the country to use the digester system, which is popular in European trash-recovery plants.

Digester tanks should not cause the kind of community uproar that repulsed other trash-to-energy plant proposals based on burning the refuse, he said.

Still, Harrison conceded, the plan faces considerable hurdles. State law now prohibits the sale of prison-made articles to anyone except governmental agencies or a foreign firm.

Harrison said the prison authority is seeking a change in state law so the plant could sell its recyclable materials to domestic firms such as Reynolds Aluminum, even though the operation could be profitable without such a change.

He said the plant would have to win approval from local air- and water-pollution officials, who would have to be assured that the enterprise would not pose an environmental hazard.

Others on Monday raised objections to the sketchy plan, which will be the subject of a more-detailed prison authority feasibility study.

Labeled ‘Exploitation’

Joe Francis, head of the San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council, said the plan smacked of “exploitation” because the prisoners would only be earning 25 cents to 90 cents an hour. The plant would be taking jobs away from other workers, and labor would oppose any law change sought by the prison authority, he added.

Diane Takvorian, executive director for the Environmental Health Coalition, also said the inmates may face safety hazards from the toxics found in household cleaners, paints and other chemicals thrown into the trash.

“Have they got protective clothing on?” Takvorian asked about the inmates. “Have they got respirators? Have they got something that is protecting their eyes and their breathing passages?”

San Diego County Supervisor Brian Bilbray, however, said he was “guardedly optimistic” about the proposal.

“We didn’t want to see the prison in our neighborhood to start with, and, if we can get the benefit, fine,” said Bilbray, who represents the South Bay.

As long as the prison uses refuse otherwise destined for the Otay landfill, which serves the South Bay, there will be no complaint from his constituents, Bilbray said.

But all that will change if the prison trash-to-energy plant takes garbage from other areas of the county.

“If you have one trash can coming from north of Division Street, the South Bay will go to war over it,” Bilbray said.