Baltimore Sun

Inmates join war on Lyme disease

Patuxent Institution prisoners build devices to help rid deer of ticks

January 19, 1998|By Dana Hedgpeth | Dana Hedgpeth, SUN STAFF

Behind the 15-foot-high barbed-wire fence at Patuxent Institution in Jessup, inmates are making weapons.

Weapons to fight the spread of Lyme disease, that is.

In the past month -- with $100,000 in funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture -- the inmates have built 100 metal feeding stations designed to attract deer and kill their ticks.

The project, which is said to be one of the largest undertaken by Maryland prisoners, is part of a $2 million experiment to deal with one of the fears accompanying the burgeoning suburban deer population -- the rising number of cases of Lyme disease, which can be transmitted by ticks.

About 30 stations were sent from Patuxent to the USDA research center in Beltsville last week. In February, USDA officials will pick another 70.

The stations will be placed in four tick-infested areas in the state.

Scientists are examining seven areas in Maryland as possible sites, including Gibson Island, Montgomery County, Upper Marlboro, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Patapsco Valley State Park, Beltsville Agricultural Research Center and River Hill in Howard County.

"It's a great combination for all," said Mat Pound, a USDA scientist who designed the feeding stations in Kerrville, Texas. "It teaches inmates sophisticated sheet metal skills, gives us a product and helps stop the spread of Lyme disease."

To the USDA, it comes down to economics -- having inmates do the work cuts the cost in half.

To get the first 100 stations built by private contractors cost $225,000. They have been installed at sites in the Northeast, including Lyme, Conn., where the disease was identified in 1976.

For the Patuxent project, the USDA bought 4 1/2 tons of sheet metal and a $3,500 spot welder.

For Maryland inmates, who are more accustomed to making license plates and wood-burning stoves or fixing broiler equipment, the project has a special appeal.

'They are concerned'

"Nobody thinks of prisoners as doing much. They are inmates, but they are concerned about the environment, and they are concerned about what's going on outside the fence," said John Hamsher, who heads the state's 38 vocational education programs in prisons.

Down a dark, concrete corridor, past the dingy dining hall and cells, in the basement of the former Diagnostic Center -- referred to as the "DC building" -- the shop room has been transformed into a small assembly line.

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1998-01-19/news/1998019019_1_lyme-ticks-patuxent-institution