occupied by a prisoner named Mr. Thomas Terrill was shut off. On April 24, 2016, Mr. Terrill died of dehydration. In New Jersey, a prisoner, exposed to legionella bacteria, spent 45 days in an induced coma at the New Jersey Department of Corrections designated hospital only to recover and return to prison missing his release date and receiving substandard medical treatment prohibiting a full recovery. 

Mr. More, Mr. Thomas, and others have been killed or seriously violated through water, a substance we all understand to be necessary for life and one we take for granted. Water is commonly  the ultimate tool of those who torture and I am not referring to the horrific practices of water boarding or even the unique style that the New York State prison had of showering a prisoner to death. What I am referring to is  the cover that a cause of death like kidney failure provides when it is reported by an authority, usually the medical practitioner. What is not reported is the cause of kidney failure. In this instance, the prisoner had no access to water for seven days and their kidney could not properly act as a filter of toxins leaving the prisoner dead. What the family or even the public sees is a common cause of death, one that is easily defended by both the medical and the custodial staff of prisons and jails. What the torturers saw was a means of enacting violence with little accountability for them as kidney failure provides a medically common cause of death.

In correctional facilities in the southwest part of the country, arsenic is found in the groundwater at alarming levels exceeding the EPA standard of 10 𝝁g/L Maximum Contaminant Level. These levels are the highest in the country. Of all the solvents available to us, water remains the champion as it dissolves more substances than any other liquid - meaning it can carry all sorts of organisms on its travels, even the worst of them like Legionelle bacteria and arsine. Water’s amazing solvency comes from its chemical composition and physical attributes; water molecules have a polar arrangement of the oxygen and hydrogen atoms—one side, say the hydrogen side, has a positive electrical charge and the other side, oxygen, has a negative charge. Because there are both hydrogen and oxygen molecules in water, the water molecule is attracted to many other different types of molecules, easily picking them up and transporting them to the body where the bacteria as in Legionnaires Disease or arsine gas (from arsenic) can be lethal. Even exposure to low levels of arsenic, whether in water or another medium, leads to deadly cancers and debilitating lung and vascular disease. In prisons in the Southwest, high levels of arsenic in the groundwater has been present for years while tests for public groundwater reveal much lower levels.  

This brings me to my final point that even if the Correctional authorities in any facility knew about the levels of bacteria or arsenic in their water systems, there is no incentive to fix the systems for a couple of reasons. First, there is no public view to these issues from those who govern the prisons. Second, correctional facilities are near-closed systems - meaning that employees and visitors enter and leave but what happens inside stays inside. Finally, a report on any abuse let alone a simple water quality document is not available for public review unless there are horrific brutalities that become too big to stay inside.