A Chaotic Climate, Two Prisons in a Lakebed and Thousands at Risk

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Oct 28

A fence with razor wire stands outside Corcoran State Prison in California in March 2023, and an unseen incarcerated man named Ajamu, who has been behind bars for over a decade, says:

Ajamu, a Black man, is pictured in a busy laundry room, and says his supervisor told him:

As incarcerated people fold clothes, the supervisor continues:

Ajamu spoke with TMP on the condition that his nickname, "Ajamu," be used to identify him because he feared retribution for speaking out.

Out in the prison yard, incarcerated people talk, and Ajamu says,

As groups of men talk at a table, reading news reports on tablets from places such as Tulare, Stratford and Visalia, Ajamu says,

As incarcerated people mill about in a common area of a two-tiered prison block, Ajamu says,

An aerial view of the Corcoran prison and the adjacent Substance Abuse Treatment Facility shows floodwaters from the lake growing, and Ajamu says,

Over the winter, storms had battered the state. A bar chart shows the extreme precipitation of 27 inches from October 2022 to September 2023, surpassing recent years when there had been a drought by as much as 20 inches.

A chart in the shape of a mountain shows historic snowpack in the Sierra Nevadas 250-300% of average. The water flowed down to fill the dry lakebed where the two prisons stood for decades.

Precipitation and snowpack data from the California Department of Water Resources.

A front-end loader sits on a levee that protects the prisons and the city of Corcoran, and residents and officials worried about what would happen if it was breached.

Scenes of cars in flooded roads and silhouettes of wildland firefighters against a backdrop ablaze, as hundreds of other facilities across the U.S. face similar risks, with climate change promising more disaster.

National analysis based on data from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and U.S. Census Bureau.

An aerial map of the two-prison complex in Corcoran that's home to 8,000 people. It was exempted from environmental law when it was first built in the lakebed.

An aerial map shows the proximity of the floodwaters to the complex, highlighting the state's decision decades ago to build the prisons in a lakebed.

A series of flooding scenes, depicting floods and the square miles they covered, including 131 square miles in 1969, 130 in 1983, 50 in 1997 and 178 in 2023. An unseen ecologist named Rob Hansen says,

Floods and Droughts in the Tulare Lake Basin, by John T. Austin; Department of Water Resources.

Hansen, a White man with white hair and glasses, says,

In 1984, lake bottom still full, Corcoran was hurting. A series of images depicts economic conditions, including 46% school enrollment and a boy sitting at a desk; a 28-35% unemployment rate and a line of workers; and a man reading a sign taped to a door that reads

School enrollment data, Hanford Sentinel, October 17, 1984; unemployment and lost city revenue, April 26, 1986.

A state prison building boom presented a permanent lifeline. A line chart that looks like a chain-link fence with barbed wire depicts the increase in the number of prisons opened per decade from the 1960s to the 1990s.

California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

A White woman with dark brown hair and a red shirt named Jeanette Todd says,

Todd was then-managing editor of The Corcoran Journal in the mid-1980s, when community meetings were held about prison construction in Corcoran. Images show scenes at a meeting and an official, who is a White man, says,

Residents and officials at local meetings were quoted in the Corcoran Journal and the Fresno Bee, from 1984 to 1986.

A citizen committee recommended three potential sites. The Department of Corrections chose the one in the lakebed alongside the Tule River. An image shows two sites outside the floodplain and one within it.

Then, the Department of Corrections convinced Corcoran and Kings County to request that the prison be exempt from state environmental law. A hand is seen taking notes on a document, and a man shows paperwork to another man while saying,

"CEQA Exemption-Corcoran" notes dated July 5, 1985, authored by attorney Dick Skjeie, held at state archives. "We are not seeking to avoid having environmental impact studies. But we are seeking to try to speed up this process," said Gov. George Deukmejian on July 17, 1985, The Los Angeles Times.

Government, citizen oversight and consultants warned against it. The comments warned of

"A Pandora's Box" and "would establish a dangerous precedent," Kings County Grand Jury, June 13, 1985; "Given CDC's sorry record in facility planning, is it wise policy to suspend all independent reviews of their planning?" Assembly Committee meeting notes on Senate Bill 146, August 26, 1985; "Potentially significant impacts," "flooding," "subsidence," 1986 report by consultant firm Jones and Stokes assessing Corrections' internal environmental review of the Corcoran project.

A hand is seen clicking a yes vote. The Legislature approved it. A vote total in the Assembly was 65-8 and in the Senate was 36-0.

Vote count, McClatchy News Service, September 13, 1985.

The Corcoran prison broke ground in 1987, while other projects approved earlier were still in initial planning. A series of images depict scenes of a groundbreaking ceremony, construction and a finished prison.

In 1993, Corcoran courted the state for another prison — this one further into the floodplain on the same piece of land. The image shows the building outlines partially in the floodplain.

Since then, Corcoran's unincarcerated population has doubled, while the populations of nearby towns have roughly tripled. A sign for Corcoran shows the population going from 6,454 in 1980 to 14,336 in 2020. A map shows nearby towns.

Population counts, 1980 and 2020, U.S. Census Bureau.

Today, the two prisons are Corcoran's largest employers, ahead of agriculture. A series of images show guards at the Substance Abuse Treatment Facility, guards leading a prisoner at Corcoran Prison, and a worker sorting tomatoes at J.G. Boswell Company.

Employment figures, California Central Valley Economic Development Corporation and California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

A map depicts Boswell parcels and the land it sold to the state for the prisons. When the Tule River broke its banks in March, Boswell's fields were among the lake's first casualties. A March 14 email from the state notes the potential impact to agricultural communities and the prison complex.

"In 1985, the CDC bought the least desirable of the three parcels from the J. G. Boswell Company," Golden Gulag by Ruth Wilson Gilmore. Boswell land ownership data, ParcelQuest.

A series of panels show scenes of farm equipment, a house, and a car submerged; a man building a sandbag wall, another walking in knee-deep water and two people rowing a boat. As residents and officials scrambled, some accused Boswell of redirecting floodwaters to other farms and homes.

Mark Grewal, former Boswell Company VP, calculated the flooded acreage using local flood district maps and observations, estimating the lake grew 10,000 acres each week in the initial flood phase.

A group of elected officials sit at a table, flanked by a U.S. flag and a California state flag, at an emergency meeting of the Kings County Board of Supervisors on March 18, 2023.

A White man with gray hair named George Wurzel, the president and chief operating officer of the Boswell Company, tells supervisors,

Repeated attempts to reach Boswell officials for comment went unanswered.

2015 and 2017 levee work, Hanford Sentinel, August 30, 2017; "Ground Subsidence Study Report, Corcoran Subsidence Bowl," Amec Foster Wheeler Environment & Infrastructure, 2017; 1969 and 1983 flood satellite images provided by Rob Hansen; 2023 flood map, California Department of Water Resources.

A man of medium skin tone named William Oliveira says at a county supervisors meeting on March 28 that he doesn't want prisoners to be flooded out, and adds,

A black box with words in white letters: Most residents of Corcoran and other lakebed towns felt much the same about the prisons today as they did in the 1980s. If the facilities closed, the lifeline they provided would vanish – but no one knew what a mass prison evacuation would look like.

George Wurzel, appearing at the April 4 supervisors meeting, says,

The flood district quickly ran out of the funds to fortify the levee. They wrote to the Corrections Department on April 25, pleading for more money. A sign reads

The State agreed to spend $17.2 million on the levee on May 11 following a visit from Governor Gavin Newsom. However, it added:

A collection of scenes shows agricultural fields alongside rising water outside Corcoran. Rebuilding the sinking levee will be a continued burden.

On a backdrop of a path between two chain-link fences and a tower, the Corrections department said it was in

A stack of papers and folders lie stacked, slightly askew. Corrections' emergency plans are deemed exempt from public records laws for security reasons. The state also blocked access to the environmental review for the first prison's construction.

A watch tower rises above the top of a fence with razor wire.

Greg, an incarcerated person at SATF, asked that his last name be withheld because he feared retribution for speaking to a reporter.

A poll by a nonprofit prison reform group in California showed there are many like Greg. A chart with three bars representing wildfire, floods and heat show a majority of respondents don't know of plans or procedures. Within the wildfire bar, a figure covers their face amid smoke. Within the flood bar, a person holds a box as a flood line creeps higher up their body. The figure in the heat bar sweats under a red glow.

For months, José Madrigal cobbled together pieces of information.

José Madrigal spoke with TMP over the course of several months in the late spring and summer.

By mid-June, the prison remained dry. Talk of evacuation evaporated. Water levels had peaked, according to the Department of Water Resources. Next to Corcoran, a high mound of shoreline sits above the water.

Concern turned from one climate threat to another. In July, summer heat plateaued over 100 degrees for weeks. A silhouetted figure sits in front of a wall with barbed wire. On the wall, a calendar shows only five days which were lower than 100 degrees.

Daily temperatures, National Weather Service station in Hanford, California.

The prisons' evaporative coolers were no match for the high heat and humidity. A man of medium to dark skin tone looks at a wall thermostat as a bead of sweat rolls down his bald head. A cooler hangs above a room filled with people in prison uniforms sitting at tables.

Madrigal swats at a mosquito on the back of his neck. He says that because of all the water, they have lots of mosquitos and the little fans they have can't combat the humidity. He holds a desktop fan close to his sweating face.

Fire risk depicted is sourced from CalFire 2023 maps; floodplains sourced from FEMA; prison locations, with "X" marking facilities being closed or in process of being closed, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

A map of the United States highlights five states: California, Texas, Florida, North Carolina and Virginia, showing floods, fires and hurricanes over each region. These states have the most counties with high incarceration rates combined with high risk of environmental disaster. Purdum says the lack of transparency about disaster planning in prisons just adds to the stress and tension in a crisis.

"Overlapping Crises: Climate Disaster Susceptibility and Incarceration" study published in 2022, based on data from FEMA and The Marshall Project.

A group of people wearing helmets and backpacks gather next to a cloud of smoke. Next to the scene, people pile sandbags alongside rising waters. A few people in both scenes are highlighted in yellow. California relies on incarcerated people to work the frontlines. Many emergency plans also detail how incarcerated people will be resources in disasters.

Incarcerated people make up 30-40% of CalFire's fire and flood response workforce.

While the rest of the world logged its hottest summer on record, the heat at Corcoran was comparatively mild. Within the complex, people stand in the shadow of the prison building.

The flooding was slow, and by summer's end, the reinforced Corcoran levee held. A slice of the landscape shows the lake water, the bare shoreline, grass and a construction crew from afar.

Dr. Daniel Swain, a man with short brown hair and light skin tone, who is a climate scientist at UCLA says,

Climate scientist Daniel Swain "office hours" on YouTube, July 10, 2023.

On August 4, the governor signed an executive order to release funding, in anticipation of another possible wet season due to the incoming El Niño climate cycle. Along the shoreline outside the Corcoran prison complex, a truck drives by with two people in the truck bed.

The effects of climate change overlay an aerial view of the California mountains near Corcoran. One label reads,

Scenes of Ajamu in a room with a wall-mounted TV, a laundry room and him reading news on a tablet. Ajamu thinks a flood is inevitable, but cities won't close down the prisons because they bring income.

A view inside of a cell with Ajamu sitting on a bed, saying:

A silhouette of Ajamu sitting with his elbows on his knees, talking about how prisoners in Corcoran now know about the potential for flooding and the risk of climate change.

This article was published in partnership with Grist.

Illustrations and reporting by Susie Cagle. Additional reporting by Geoff Hing at The Marshall Project. Cagle is a 2023 Alicia Patterson Foundation journalism fellow.