By Kate Giammarise and Rich Lord
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
PITTSBURGH — Indications of black mold in the Allegheny County Jail have corrections officers worried enough that they’ve complained to the Health Department and, late Thursday, to the board that oversees the lockup.
Corrections Officer Brian Englert addressed the Allegheny County Jail Oversight Board about one of his colleagues who “is having a lot of respiratory issues, due to what many of us feel is a black mold condition on the housing unit he worked at.” The problem began as skin irritations and progressed to respiratory problems, which have worsened, Mr. Englert said.
“We really feel that [he] should be covered under some sort of Workman’s Comp,” he told the board Thursday.
The roof is being replaced over that section of the jail, he added. “Pull the ceiling tiles down and make sure there’s no black mold on the underside of that tile. Make sure it’s not on the sub-ceiling,” he said.
Warden Orlando Harper said the issue has been addressed.
“We had the Health Department come in. And we had an outside entity come to that unit and cleared that unit,” the warden told the board. “I want to assure the board that my employees’ safety is the utmost concern and that we have...done everything in our power to ensure that our employees are safe. So that unit has been cleared.”
A spokeswoman for the Health Department was not immediately able to confirm if the agency had visited the jail or what had been found.
The mold complaints are among the causes of tension between corrections officers and management at the jail. The officers view Warden Harper and Deputy Warden Simon Wainwright as overly concerned with what they view as minor disciplinary infractions. Even the fight against mold, corrections officers complain, has become mired in rules and threats.
In January, for instance, Deputy Warden Wainwright reiterated a six-paragraph 2015 memo -- received by the Post-Gazette in March -- describing, in detail, when and how cleansing bleach bottles will be delivered to the jail’s housing units. Officers were required to count the bleach bottles and sign off on their receipt, “to ensure that the bleach is supervised,” and to dispose of the bottles at a specific time and manner.
The deputy warden wrote that “any violation of this procedure will generate disciplinary action.”
Mr. Englert started to complain to Jail Oversight Board board members Thursday about scheduling problems, but board president Common Pleas Judge Joseph Williams cut him off and said that issue should be taken up with the warden.
“This is not a venue for circumventing the authority of the warden,” he said. “You need to reconcile that in-house.”
The judge later chided Mr. Englert and two of his colleagues for what he said was inappropriate behavior during the meeting.
“It’s almost like you are here to be disgruntled,” the judge said.
“When we do voice concerns, no one wants to hear them,” said another jail employee. “This is why we get to the point where we are.”
Copyright 2016 the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette