Carbon County officials are spending $40,000 for an additional 400,000 gallons of water at the prison, beginning in 2017.

Last week, the county prison board and the county commissioners approved the purchase an additional 20 EDUs from Nesquehoning to cover the additional amount of wastewater going into the borough's sewer system from the jail and Emergency Management Agency building on the Broad Mountain, effective Jan. 1. One EDU equates to 20,000 gallons of water and has an initial cost of $2,000 each.Robert Crampsie, county controller, told the prison board that following the October meeting, he had his accountant do a cost analysis of the water usage at the prison to see what can be done to alleviate the problem.Last month, the prison board discussed its sewage rates and overages as a result of the additional water usage over the 880,000 gallons already purchased quarterly from the borough. The county pays $4,620 for 44 EDUs per quarter, but has continually spent over $4,000 in overage costs as well.Crampsie said that based on his department's analysis for the period of January 2015 through June 2016, the county would see the maximum amount in savings of $5,498.80 if it purchased an additional 21 EDUs.He pointed out that the payback period for the purchase until the county sees a return on its investment is approximately eight years because each EDU comes with an annual savings, based on the overage charges the county was seeing over the past six quarters, is $236.Crampsie said you have to take the prison population into consideration as well, which is currently hovering near full capacity.The board then asked Crampsie what he feels is the correct number of EDUs to purchase. He responded with 20."The one thing you don't want to do is have more EDUs than you need because then you're paying for something you're not using," Crampsie said."If you look at the last six quarters, we put out $22,000 in surcharges," Commissioner William O'Gurek said."If we don't do anything, it's going to cost us $40,000 anyhow," Sheriff Anthony Harvilla said."If you don't do anything, it is going to continue to add up, add up, add up," Crampsie said. "I think you've got to do something."The board then made the recommendation to send it before the commissioners, who passed the motion.The issue of water consumption has been occurring at the prison periodically for years.In 2008, the prison purchased six additional EDUs after the same issue rose and an analysis showed it would help, but as inmate populations rose, so did the water consumption, sometimes up to between 18,000 and 20,000 gallons a day.