Sacramento Bee-

California’s corrections department is spending $46,000 a month to buy bottled water for inmates and staff at a prison in Tracy where it opened a state-of-the-art water treatment plant eight years ago.

Deuel Vocational Institution draws water from brackish wells on its grounds and runs it through a two-step treatment process before providing it to 2,300 inmates and 1,000 employees for drinking or for showers.

News reports on the 2010 unveiling of a $32 million water treatment plant characterized the department as providing the cleanest, best water in the state to prison inmates.

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