Massachusetts Department of Correction officials say the water meets state standards for potability.
But they acknowledge there’s a problem in at least some of the samples collected from the prison’s well: elevated levels of the mineral manganese, which can cause health problems including a Parkinson’s disease-like neurological disorder.
The state Department of Environmental Protection ordered DOC to install the system and has been fining DOC because of delays.
"People in the community shouldn’t have to be put in a position to raise funds to provide water for people incarcerated in our state prison system," says Greg Diatchenko, who served almost 30 years at MCI-Norfolk for murder and was paroled in 2014.
Anywhere, people will tell you that you need clean drinking water to survive."
"The folks inside are human, you know?
And so they deserve the basic human rights that we all have out here, too," adds Christine Mitchell, a Harvard doctoral student in public health and member of Deeper Than Water.
"We know [DOC has] the money and the resources to provide clean water, and they haven’t done it."
Coalition members say their efforts to distribute bottled water hit a snag because a prisoner who was handing out the water, Wayland Coleman, was put in solitary confinement last week for doing so.
The audio for Diatchenko’s and Mitchell’s All Things Considered conversation will be posted later.