By Mr. Anglemyer, inmate technician for the SPP Frog and Turtle Program
The dog days of summer have almost gone which means that it is harvest time for some of the vegetables that are growing here at Cedar Creek Corrections Center.
The gardens are tended by inmates and all the food grown goes to the institution’s kitchen for inmates to eat. Broccoli, cabbage, carrots, corn, peppers, lettuce, beans, squash and pumpkins are all being prepared in the kitchen. There’ll even be a small amount of tomatoes and strawberries.
Cedar Creek Gardens Ready to Harvest. Photo by Joslyn Trivett.
Last year inmates grew close to twenty thousand pounds of produce. All this food will never see the inside of a can. It has all been grown organically — no pesticides or chemical fertilizers have been used in the growing process. Most of the compost used to amend the soil was made at the prison using leftover kitchen scraps (except for a layer of mushroom compost that was obtained locally).
Adding Cedar Creek Compost to the Soil. Photo by SPP Staff.
The food will be a welcome change from the normal fare of processed, frozen, canned or bagged produce that is the norm in prisons. It is unfortunate that fresh produce only lasts for a few months, but three months is better than zero months; especially when some inmates among the population haven’t had access to fresh food for years — or even decades. The difference between organically grown garden fresh produce and the frozen, dyed, and chemically grown/preserved stuff is night and day.
Rhubarb Growing Along the Fence. Photo by Sadie Gilliom.
There are some extra challenges this year due to the drought. We’re worried about water usage here just like everybody else on the west coast, but hopefully the lack of water won’t have a huge effect on crop yields. The inmates are doing a great job of using water efficiently and of recapturing where they can.
Many of us in the population are extremely grateful to the guys from the horticulture program whom work in the gardens, as well as the people at Centralia College and the Sustainability in Prisons Project who do their part in making the gardens possible. Fresh food makes the late summer and fall seasons here at Cedar Creek a special time.
By Andrew Garber, DOC Communications
Photos by Kelli Bush, SPP Program Manager
LITTLEROCK – Jack Boysen grew up afraid of bees, yet here he is sticking his hand in the middle of a buzzing hive.
Beekeeping technician Mr. Mr. Anglemyer describes beekeeping to the King 5 cameraman.
The puffy, white, head-to-toe beekeeper suit he’s wearing helps, as does a hand-held smoker that puts the bees in a subdued state. “When you don’t use smoke, you don’t have a good day,” Boysen advises.
Still, Boysen says he never would have contemplated walking into a swarm of bees a few years ago.
Being in prison changed his mind.“I’ve had a lot of jobs in DOC. Janitor, cook, plumber, electrician and out of all the jobs I’ve had over the years, this is the most rewarding because you feel like you are doing something not only for your own benefit, but also the rest of the world,” he said.
“You have the opportunity to actually advance yourself when you get out of here,” said Boysen, 29, who is projected for release in 2017. “You have the potential to turn this into a career when you get out.”
Technicians Angelmeyer and Boysen attend to the hives, checking on the bees’ health of the bees while they describe what they have learned about beekeeping.
Boysen learned about the program from his classification counselor, Gina Sibley, and signed up with another inmate at the prison to take a six-week course last year that teaches the basics of beekeeping. Since then, he’s been helping tend bee hives at the prison.
The work involves donning his white suit once a week, with its tight-fitting gloves and netted hood that zips shut to keep out the bees. Then Boysen and another offender light up a metal smoker that burns wood chips or pine needles, and they head for the hives.
They puff smoke and gingerly pull out wooden racks that contain the bees and their honey. The inmates are checking on the health of the bees, which are prone to various pests and diseases. They also want to see if a new hive is forming.
“Through monitoring, we discovered a hive was starting to split and they actually created a queen cell and were creating a new queen,” Boysen said recently, while holding a rack crawling with bees to look for a queen. “So we took that out of the box and made a new hive out of it because when they do that, it means they’re getting ready to swarm.”
During the summer, the inmates and a correctional officer, Glenn Epling, who assists them, take honey-laden racks to a small centrifuge in a shed behind the prison that spins just fast enough to force out the honey without damaging the cones. The racks are then put back into the hives for the bees to refill.
Officer Epling shows the reporters the liquid gold produced by Cedar Creek’s beekeeping program.
Officer Epling shares his expertise and excitement about working with the hives.
One worker bee, which lives around six weeks, produces about 1⁄12th of a teaspoon of honey during its lifetime, said Laurie Pyne, with the Olympia Beekeepers Association. So if you ever buy an 8-ounce bottle of honey in a store, it likely took the lives of more than 500 bees to fill the jar.
Olympia Beekeeping Association president Laurie Pyne consults with beekeepers at Stafford Creek Corrections Center following a lecture.
Boysen thinks about the living he could make from raising bees.
“It’s kind of hard for us to get jobs out there, if you have an extensive record,” said Boysen, who is serving time for multiple convictions including theft and possession of a controlled substance. “With this, for a couple hundred dollars you can get a hive together.
“Then you get two hives and three. You can get almost five gallons of honey off one hive in a year. If you market it in small honey bears, it actually gives you a pretty decent income,” he said, while pulling out a rack to take to the centrifuge.
“We’re basically robbing the bees,” he said. “But this is definitely legal.”
Epling, who tends several hives at his own home in addition to working with offenders at the prison, said that two inmates who were released last year are now raising bees on the outside. “And it sounds like we have a future here with these inmates,” he said of the offenders he’s teaching now. “It’s a good thing. It works for everybody.”
Joslyn Rose Trivett, who works for Sustainability in Prisons Project at The Evergreen State College, said one of the SPP’s goals is to teach offenders marketable skills they can use on the outside, as well as help build up their self-esteem while in prison.
“A lot of the people who are incarcerated are struggling with the feeling of being thrown away and discarded by society,” she said.
SPP Network Manager Joslyn Rose Trivett interviews with the King5 reporters.
The beekeeper program and others like it can show offenders “there is value in every material and every resource and every animal and plant and certainly in every person,” she said.
By Anna Crickmer, PE, Project Manager, Capital Programs, Department of Corrections
Photos by Clallam Bay Corrections Center staff
The head operator of the waste water treatment facility at Clallam Bay Corrections Center smiles in front of the waste water “polishing” pond.
Sewage treatment at Clallam Bay Corrections Center (CBCC) is the epitome of sustainable operations. They have an aerated lagoon (very low tech) with a polishing pond of duckweed (also very low tech), but staff are so dedicated to the operation that they get contamination reduction results exceeding some very high tech operations.
The main way to measure sewage treatment performance is the reduction of Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) and Total Suspended Solids (TSS). Aerated lagoons generally reduce BOD by 75-80% and TSS by 70-80%. High tech, activated Sludge plants, the gold standard of sewage treatment, usually get 85-97% reduction in BOD and 87-93% in TSS.
The plant at CBCC gets 96% reduction of BOD, and 99% reduction of TSS—even better than the gold standard!
One reason that they get these remarkable results is that they aerate the heck out of the lagoon. The original aerators are still in operation, thanks to meticulous maintenance, and more aerators have been added. In the summer months, water stays in the lagoon for 25 1/2 days before moving to a second pond, the “polishing” pond.
The prison’s waste water starts its treatment in a lagoon full of aerators.
The polishing pond is covered in duckweed. The duckweed takes up nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus (pollutants if discharged), and shades the water so that no algae can grow. The duckweed is grown in “corrals” so that it doesn’t blow to one side of the pond. The sides of the corrals tip over so that the operators can travel across them in a small pontoon boat when they maintain the pond. Water stays in the polishing pond 24 1/2 days, and then is ready for discharge into the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
The second treatment pond, the “polishing” pond, is covered in duckweed; the grid of corrals is to keep the duckweed coverage complete (without those barriers, the floating plants would migrate with the wind).
The staff operators of the plant are exceptionally competent, and likable characters besides. Both used to be loggers, and say that their environmental conscience has been raised considerably because of their work at DOC. One of them told me, “Why, I even want to save whales now!”
by Cyril Walrond, Roots of Success Instructor and Master Trainer
“…All things are possible to him that believes.” Mark 9:23
Cyril Walrond, Roots of Success instructor speaking at the class graduation ceremony in 2014. Photo by Joslyn Rose Trivett.
Teaching the Roots of Success environmental literacy curriculum here at Stafford Creek has been not only a blessing to my life but has also been an enriching privilege and honor. To teach this 10-module course in a classroom without any correctional staff, administration, or outside volunteers to sponsor it is unprecedented in the Department of Corrections. Daily it is just me and my two co-workers Grady Mitchell and David Duhaime in our classroom teaching a class of 20-30 eager incarcerated students.
They told us it could not be done, but we are doing it. They doubted that there would be any interest, but we have become one of the most sought after programs among the men at the facility. They thought that the material might be too difficult or challenging, we said let’s challenge them. Now, nearly 2 1/2 years later, we have graduated 8 classes and over 200 students. How was this done?… Through believing!
It is only through believing that we can make a difference that we can then impact our students. It is only through instilling this belief in our students, that they have something to contribute to this world, that they began to care about how they have impacted their environment and how they will impact it into the future. Looking beyond their present pain and into the future possibilities.
A look at over 50 students graduating from the Roots of Success program at Stafford Creek. Photo by Tiffany Webb.
My co-workers and I met frequently before our first class and agreed that if we did not believe in ourselves, this curriculum, and then each other, our students would never believe in us, this curriculum, or themselves. Now we are seeing the effects of our believing on the lives of not inmates, not convicts, not offenders, but on once-broken men who are now on a conquest to make a difference as they repair their lives.
Many of our students came into class with a warped self-image. Programmed to think that prison was inevitably predestined for their lives and that this is what they were being groomed for from the time they were conceived. We assure them these lies have conditioned them to the point of complacency, stagnation, and then finally acceptance. This place of acceptance is the realm in which many of them dwell, after having accepted their plight. However, they are made for more!
This is why one of my students, who we call Radio, really touched my heart when he personally thanked me at the conclusion of this class’s graduation. “Sir, thank you. You pushed me when I did not want to move. You challenged me when I felt like giving up. You believed in me when I did not believe in myself. Even when I thought my future was hopeless, you quoted to me several times Jeremiah 29:11.”
Radio is just one of many success stories that the 3 of us laugh and joke about when times get hard and our patience may be running thin with our students. (Trust me, anyone who has ever taught knows what I mean.) But we never get discouraged by the uphill battle. We press on and continue to believe that what we are accomplishing is much bigger than any one of us. Radio is a perfect example of how our believing in our students against all odds is giving hope to the hopeless.
A Roots of Success class in action at Stafford Creek Corrections Center. Photo by Joslyn Rose Trivett.
Sooner or later most of these men will be released. These men enter into our classroom one way and by the time that they leave their minds have been expanded beyond recognition. David, Grady, and I believe that what we are doing will transcend these walls, and society will begin to believe in the great potential held within.
“‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.'” Jeremiah 29:11
These are the effects of believing! So let me ask, what are you believing for?
SPP student-staff and butterfly technicians at MCCCW install four new raise beds to grow plantain, a common weed preferred by the endangered butterfly as food in their larval life-stage. Photo by Seth Dorman.
A refreshing, overcast morning at Mission Creek Corrections Center for Women (MCCCW) made for great weather to build four new raised beds for the Taylor’s Checkerspot Butterfly Program. We will grow plantain (Plantago) in these beds to increase the amount of food for the caterpillars (larvae) at the facility. SPP’s nursery crew—including Carl Elliott, Allie Denzler, and Ricky Johnson— joined the butterfly team on the project.
Lindsey Hamilton, Taylor’s Checkerspot Program Coordinator, and butterfly technician Eva Ortiz unload a wheelbarrow full of soil. Photo by Seth Dorman.
Butterfly technician Michelle Dittamore and SPP nursery coordinator Allie Denzler install support brackets. in a corner. Photo by Seth Dorman.
The Taylor’s Checkerspot larvae require Plantago leaves for foraging, and then as adult they can use the plants as a place to lay their eggs. In recent years, the larvae have prospered; the hard-working technicians dutifully supply each larva with an appropriate serving of food. The larvae will eat as much as they can in the fall to grow and store up enough energy to survive the cold, winter months of dormancy (diapause). When the hungry larvae wake-up in mid-February, they require an ample food each day to become a pupa (pupate). Some Februarys, the Plantago plants have not yet had favorable weather conditions for sprouting new, plentiful leaves. Consequently, the food the larvae desperately need to complete their life cycle is scarce. Some years, technicians are forced to pick from scattered Plantago around the perimeter of the facility.
By adding the new raised beds, we hope to have a more dependable supply for larvae to metamorphose into beautifully checkered adults. With the bed additions, we hope to grow at least 3,500 plantain plants. This means each of the 3,500 larvae reared in a season will have their own individual plantain plant! We plan to add cold frames for each raised bed, which will boost plantain production in late winter. Bountiful food resources for the butterfly larvae are beneficial in the warmer months of the season if some food recourses become contaminated or reduced due to pests and disease.
SPP’s nursery crew and butterfly team shovel soil to be placed in new raise beds. Photo by Seth Dorman.
After some heavy lifting of soil with shovels, the maintenance crew at MCCCW shows SPP their bulldozing skills. Photo by Seth Dorman.
Plant ecologist and horticulture educator Gretchen Grabber works with an inmate technician filling tray for seed sewing. Photo by CRCC staff.
This spring inmates started 20,000 sage brush plants at CRCC. As an essential component of the program, hands on training and lectures are provided for inmates and staff by plant ecologist and horticulture educator Gretchen Grabber of WNP and WSU TC. The primary goal of this project is to provide sagebrush for restoration of greater sage grouse habitat. Fifty percent of the sagebrush steppe habitat in the United States has been lost to large scale fires, conversion to other land uses, invasive cheat grass, and noxious weeds. Sagebrush habitat provides important shelter and food for the greater sage grouse and many other species. All of the sagebrush plants grown at CRCC will be planted on BLM land for restoration in the Palisades Flat Fire Project area near Wenatchee, Washington.
Facility staff and Superintendent Uttecht eagerly accepted the opportunity to host this new program with very short notice, resulting in a busy spring and summer at CRCC. It was impressive how quickly they built a hoop house, hired an inmate crew, prepared containers for planting, and planted sagebrush seeds.
This is what we want! A seedling sagebrush shows its beauty in the conservation nursery. Photo by Kelli Bush.
Educational lectures and workshops and plant care will continue into fall. Inmate crews, staff, and Gretchen Grabber will assist BLM in planting sagebrush late fall 2015/early winter 2016.
The Sagebrush Steppe Conservation Nursery program at CRCC is part of a multi-state restoration program including nurseries located in Oregon and Idaho corrections centers. The Institute for Applied Ecology (IAE) is a founding partner of SPP-Oregon, and they have provided the grant funding and training materials making this program possible.
Here, CRCC’s superintendent, CRCC staff, Getchen Grabber, and representatives from IAE, DOC headquarters, and SPP meet to hash out details critical to the program’s success. Photo by Kelli Bush.
Partners involved in the nursery recently met at CRCC to discuss program status. It was a productive meeting focused on planning for the rest of this season and dreaming about additions for next year. Thank you to each and every collaborator involved and we look forward to watching this program grow! Special thanks to Stacy Moore with IAE for bringing this opportunity to CRCC.
By Tiffany Webb, SPP Lecture Series Program Coordinator
(Follow-up post from May 2015 lecture at WCCW.)
Tiffany Webb is finishing her graduate degree in Environmental and Social Justice at the Evergreen State College.Her interdisciplinary thesis focuses on the intersection of environmental justice and education in prisons.
I can’t keep down some strong feelings about leaving every time I am at a lecture now. After nearly two years as the SPP Science and Sustainability Lecture Series Program Coordinator, I only have two more lectures to host before a new MES graduate student finds their own spot in this position. It is exciting to pass the opportunity to someone new, offering an experience that I imagine will be just as eye-opening and rewarding as my own. At the same time, it is very difficult to leave knowing I likely will never again see the people I’ve worked with, learned alongside, and advocated for in prisons.
Tiffany presenting on the EJ paradigm and climate justice at Stafford Creek Corrections Center.
Tuesday was a beautiful day. The SPP Network Manager and I have developed science and sustainability education certificates for incarcerated men and women who attend the lecture series regularly. After Tuesday’s presentations, a woman who has been going to lectures at Washington Corrections Center for Women (WCCW) for years received the very first certificate recommending transfer credit at Evergreen! We shared such a moment of pride in that room—women lifting each other up and celebrating, owning the classroom and their minds. I am thankful for these moments of victory behind prison walls, and the lasting impact formalization of the Science and Sustainability Lecture Series will have.
Chelsea Smith Waddell, recent MES graduate, giving a presentation on her thesis research at Washington Corrections Center for Women.
That day, the new MES Director—someone I consider a huge mentor—Kevin Francis, gave a presentation. Chelsea Smith Waddell, one of the most brilliant and vibrant women I know, also joined us and she shared her thesis research with the class. Her research focused on habitat characteristics of the Oregon Spotted Frog, an endangered frog species being reared at Cedar Creek Corrections Center and released on WA prairies through SPP partnerships.
Kevin Francis, MES Director at the Evergreen State College, lecturing at WCCW.
It was amazing to be in that classroom, seeing my two worlds combine: my Evergreen and WCCW peers all in one room, engaging in education together. It brings me joy to know that while I am leaving this deeply important work, it doesn’t end here. The incarcerated men and women I know continue to push for more education and classroom space at their prisons. The Evergreen faculty and graduate students continue to engage with education outside of an academic institution “bubble”. And unique and empowering spaces will continue to develop in prisons as more people become aware of the injustices associated with the U.S. criminal justice system.”
The four-day Roots of Success training event culminated with a day at Washington Corrections Center for Women (WCC-W). It was a joy to be in the classroom with incarcerated women from WCC-W and Mission Creek Corrections Center. The attention and interest they gave the material were palpable, and I cannot wait to see them as instructors! Here are some photo highlights from the day.
Professor of Urban Studies and Planning at San Francisco State University and the Founder and Executive Director of Roots of Success Raquel Pinderhughes teaches a class of future Roots of Success instructors.
A future Roots of Success instructor takes careful notes.
The instructor candidates were attentive throughout the presentations. They showed grace and optimism in the face of demanding and dense subject matter.
The classroom was illuminated by a skylight, and the day light entering the classroom was a lovely compliment to the intellectual and social illumination inside.
The future instructors were joined by staff from several prisons. They serve as liaisons for the Roots of Success program, and their enthusiasm for the course is a huge asset.
Paula Andrew, Dorothy Trainer, Ron Howell, Mark Black, and Greg Banner are DOC staff and SPP superstars—they do so much for our programs! The attended the training so that they can offer full support to the instructors and students of the course.
This Friday, I will visit the first Roots of Success class at WCC-W accompanied by SPP’s new program coordinator, Emily Passarelli. Emily takes over Roots coordination from Christina Stalnaker. Christina has graduated, and she left the program in great shape. She streamlined administration for Roots to the point that Emily will be able to give attention to developing further programs. Emily’s title is Green Track Coordinator, to represent a wider focus. Can’t wait to see where we take things next!
An inmate-electrician at Washington Corrections Center for Women updates a light fixture in the main courtyard. Photo by Jody Becker-Green.
According to Brian Tinney, Assistant Secretary for the Administrative Services Division, Washington State DOC has purchased 1,353 new LED light fixtures in the last 60 days. The LED light fixtures are far more energy efficient than the those they replace, and DOC expects to save 1.1 gigawatts of electricity in the first 50,000 hours following installation. Saving 1.1 gigawatts is the same as saving 1.1 billion watts, almost enough to power the DeLorean in Back to the Future.
SPP’s new director for DOC, Steve Sinclair, played a pivotal role in the new commitment to LED technology. He inspired facility managers to embrace the idea, and created the purchasing plan to make replacement and retrofits easily achievable.
The next LED challenge will be in converting prison perimeter lighting—switching to LED technology so that outdoor evenings are safe and well-lit, but less expensive than they have been.
by Liz Louie, SPP Butterfly Technician
Introduction by Lindsey Hamilton, SPP Butterfly Program Coordinator
Butterfly technician Elizabeth Louie worked with the Taylor’s checkerspot butterfly (TCB) program at Mission Creek Corrections Center for Women (MCCCW) for more than two years. She is now one of the few butterfly husbandry experts in the world. During her time at Mission Creek she made many significant contributions to the program. She streamlined data collection procedures and created an immaculately organized system for tracking daily activities and progress. She always found creative solutions to problems when resources and communication with outside expertise was limited. Lastly, as a senior butterfly technician she ensured high quality butterfly care and effectively trained and inspired incoming technicians. The program will benefit from her good work for years to come. Liz will be missed, but we are so happy for her and wish her the best in all that she pursues in life.
Liz Louie records data on pupae and butterfly weights.
The following is a blog written by Elizabeth Louie, now out of prison in work release:
It has been 26 months and three seasons, with two Sustainability in Prisons Project (SPP) bosses and three Department of Corrections (DOC) bosses, releasing approximately 8,000 caterpillars and 250 butterflies to the wild. I have come to the end of an amazing journey. As I leave Mission Creek and the TCB program, I want to say THANK YOU for the experience.
It seems appropriate that I’m leaving just as the caterpillars are going into diapause. All the hard work caring for larvae, pupae and eclosing butterflies, conducting breeding and collecting eggs is now done. It’s now a transition period. A period of rest before the cycle begins again, similar to the stage I’m in now. Work release, a time of transition and preparation for my final release into the community.
Liz Louie explains the details of butterfly husbandry to the University of Denver’s Institute for Human – Animal Connection. Photo by Judith Gerren
A writer from Sierra Magazine recently asked what I thought about the irony of having a butterfly program in prison; the contrast between the delicate, fragile butterfly and the “harshness” of prison life. For me, butterflies are very resilient animals. Their primary habitat was an artillery range, the aftermath of fire and destruction. Metaphorically, the butterfly symbolizes re-birth, new life and beginnings. So with that said, Mission Creek (prison) makes a lot of sense for a surrogate habitat.
Liz is demonstrating how we care for postdiapause larvae. We keep them in bins with paper bags (“mima mounds”) to climb on after they wake up from their winter slumber. Photo by Jody Becker-Green
In fact, there are other parallels between the butterflies and prison life. The larvae will sometimes go into second diapause (D2) if they feel conditions are not right. Maybe there’s not enough food, so the larvae will go back to sleep. Similar to D2 larvae, women come in and out of prison. They may not have gotten what they needed from prison the first time, or they lack outside support to help them be successful. But for me personally, at my age, its good to know that the final stage is a butterfly. It means the most beautiful stage of my life is yet to come. All the other stages have been in preparation for that final one.
Liz Louie shows inmate Samantha Turner how to remove a new pupae from a “mima mound”. This is a very delicate process.
This will be a time in my life that I won’t soon forget. The people I’ve met and the women I’ve worked with, I take away something from each of them. I’ve learned a lot about myself, both the good, and the things I need to change. I have a greater appreciation for the simple things in life. I walk away a stronger person and look forward to whatever life holds.
Inmate Liz Louie feeds a Taylor’s checkerspot honey water from a Q-tip. Photo by Benj Drummond and Sara Joy Steele.
